LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


PRESENTED  BY 


Princeton  University  Library 


BV  4254    .N52    1909 
Nichols,  Gideon  Parsons, 

1837"" 
The  preciousness  of  God's 

thoughts 


The  Preciousness 
of  God's  Thoughts 


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G.  PARSONS  NICHOLS 


The  Preciousriess 
of  God's  Thoughts 

Sermons  and  Addresses 


G.  PARSONS  NICHOLS,  D.D. 


With  a  Memoir 


New  York        Chicago       Toronto 

Fleming   H.    Revell   Company 

London       and       Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1909,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  80  Wabash  Avenue 
Toronto :  25  Richmond  St.,  W. 
London  :  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh  :  100  Princes  Street 


Contents 

Memoir 9 

Sermons  : 

The  Preciousness  of  God's  Thoughts 37 

The  Morning  Star 51 

Unused  Spices 64 

Ideal  Aims 78 

God's  Self-Given  Name 96 

The  Old  Paths 109 

Strengthening  The  Things  That  Remain 127 

Jesus  Hiding  His  Face 139 

Contentment 152 

On  Taking  a  Rest 165 

The  Scope  and  Outlook  of  Life 177 

Addresses  on  Special  Occasions: 

Addresses 191 

At  Board  of  Trade  Dinner 193 

Greeting  to  Congregation  199 

Appeal  for  Church  Decoration 202 

Appeal  for  Confession  of  Christ 206 

Address  at  Holy  Communion 209 

A  Children 's  Sermon 213 

Report  on  Synodical  Home  Missions 218 

An  Ordination  Charge  223 


Memoir 


Memoir. 

Gideon  Parsons  Nichols  was  born  on  July  30,  1837, 
in  "Windsor,  Massachusetts,  a  village  in  the  Berkshire 
hills,  near  Pittsfield.  His  father  was  Abiel  Nichols,  a 
farmer  and  blacksmith,  and  his  mother  was  Jerusha 
Knight  Parsons,  both  of  New  England  blood  for  gen- 
erations. They  had  only  this  child,  and  the  mother 
died  when  he  was  two  and  a  half  years  old.  Soon 
after  the  father  married  his  first  wife's  sister,  who 
was  in  every  possible  way  indeed  a  mother  to  the  boy. 

He  was  a  rather  extraordinary  child.  He  learned  to 
read  at  the  age  of  four,  his  textbooks  being  a  child's 
tin  plate  bearing  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  and  the 
words  on  the  kitchen  stove.  He  used  to  go  to  the 
village  grocery  store  in  the  evenings,  and  in  return  for 
a  handful  of  raisins,  which  were  sweetmeats  to  him, 
perched  on  a  cracker-barrel  he  would  read  the  Bible 
to  a  group  of  men.  His  mother  seemed  to  see  that  the 
boy  had  a  more  than  ordinary  aptitude  for  books,  and 
she  did  her  utmost  to  encourage  him  in  his  studies. 
Though  she  knew  nothing  of  Latin,  she  insisted  that 
Parsons  (as  he  was  always  called  by  his  intimates) 
learn  it,  and  with  pathetic  ludicrousness  she  had  him 
recite  to  her  untaught  ears. 

Youth  brought  to  him  little  of  the  freedom  and 
joy  that  come  to  most  young  men.  For  some  months 
of  the  year  he  spent  part  of  the  day  in  the  school- 

9 


10  MEMOIR 

house,  but  during  the  rest  of  the  time  he  helped  on 
the  farm — and  only  those  who  know  the  Berkshires 
know  what  farming  there  means.  One  of  the  few 
things  on  which  he  ever  prided  himself  was  his  speed 
in  mowing  with  the  scythe.  Besides  his  farm-work 
he  helped  in  the  cooking  and  the  care  of  the  house, 
because  his  mother  had  become  an  invalid,  tortured 
by  chronic  rheumatism.  The  expenses  of  her  long  ill- 
ness straitened  Abiel  Nichols'  means,  and  cost  the  son 
what  seemed  his  only  chance  of  further  education. 
But  when  he  was  seventeen  years  old  a  door  opened  to 
him. 

His  uncle,  the  Reverend  James  Nichols,  was  prin- 
cipal of  Temple  Hill  Academy,  at  Geneseo,  New  York. 
He  and  his  wife  (the  S.  J.  N.  of  the  letters  hereafter 
quoted)  now  offered  to  receive  their  nephew  under 
their  care,  and  this  made  it  possible  for  him  to  attend 
the  academy,  which  provided  preparation  for  college. 
Those  who  remember  the  quiet  assured  air  of  power 
with  which  Dr.  Nichols  moved  in  every  variety  of  duty 
and  in  many  trying  and  difficult  occasions  cannot 
imagine  the  shyness  and  reserve  of  the  boy  who  came 
to  his  uncle's  rooms  in  Geneseo  for  his  weekly  pack- 
age of  clean  clothes — sitting  uneasy  on  the  edge  of  a 
chair,  abashed  before  the  kindest  of  aunts  and  his  un- 
noticing  little  cousins.  Hardly  a  word  could  his  aunt 
get  from  him,  and  it  was  a  source  of  unfailing  regret 
and  self-reproach  to  her  that  she  could  not  win  him 
to  talk  to  her  as  others  did.  This  shyness  continued 
indeed  to  his  manhood,  and  seemed  to  him  a  serious 
objection  to  his  becoming  a  minister.     '*How  can  I 


MEMOIR  11 

ever  go  into  a  house  uninvited?  How  can  I  talk  to 
strangers  about  their  domestic  or  spiritual  concerns  ? ' ' 
he  would  often  say.  Yet  he  overcame  this  sensitive 
timidity,  and  became  a  most  faithful,  welcome  and 
sympathetic  pastor. 

His  first  confession  of  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
was  made  in  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Geneseo  in 
July  of  1855.  Next  year  he  transferred  his  member- 
ship to  the  church  at  Moscow,  New  York,  where  he 
taught  a  winter  school. 

With  two  years'  study  he  was  ready  for  college. 
Then  the  problem  was  how  to  get  the  necessary  money. 
In  those  days  the  idea  prevailed  that  a  son's  earnings 
until  his  coming  of  age  belonged  to  his  father:  and 
Abiel  Nichols  had  done  much  for  his  son,  all  that  he 
could  do,  in  letting  him  go  away  from  the  home  where 
he  was  greatly  needed  in  quest  of  education.  Union 
College  was  in  the  height  of  its  glory  at  that  time, 
under  the  presidency  of  the  famous  Eliphalet  Nott, 
and  the  Civil  War  had  not  yet  cut  its  attendance  in 
half.  His  uncle  James  Nichols  had  graduated  there, 
and  thither  the  young  man  determined  to  go.  In  the 
autumn  of  1856  he  arrived  in  Schenectady,  possessing 
five  dollars  and  the  hope  of  obtaining  a  scholarship. 
This  aid  was  awarded  on  the  basis  of  work  during  the 
first  six  weeks,  so  that  his  five  dollars  had  to  carry  this 
aspirant  at  least  this  time.  It  did,  and  he  won  the 
scholarship,  but  the  combination  of  hard  work  and 
little  food  left  him  a  sickness  of  several  weeks. 

At  the  end  of  his  four  years  he  graduated  as  vale- 


12  MEMOIR 

dictorian  of  a  somewhat  famous  class,  that  of  1860. 
In  eoUege  he  was  a  charter  member  of  the  Union  chap- 
ter of  the  fraternity  of  Delta  Kappa  Epsilon,  and  a 
member  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa.  After  graduation  he 
taught  for  two  years  in  the  Academy  at  Wamerville, 
New  York,  a  town  not  far  from  Albany,  and  it  was 
during  his  first  year  there  that  he  determined  to  enter 
the  Christian  ministry,  in  the  Presbyterian  Church. 

Eev.  James  Nichols  had  removed  in  1858  from 
Geneseo  to  Eochester,  and  had  become  principal  of  the 
Rochester  Female  Academy.  From  that  time  his 
nephew's  vacations  were  regularly  spent  with  the 
family  at  Rochester,  and  he  became  really  a  member 
of  it,  not  through  any  formal  adoption,  but  through 
that  of  the  mind  and  heart.  His  uncle 's  wife  became, 
as  he  loved  to  call  her,  his  mother,  and  between  them 
there  existed  the  closest  intellectual  and  spiritual  sym- 
pathy, as  regular  weekly  letters  for  many  years  show. 
In  1862  his  uncle  went  to  the  war,  as  Chaplain  of  the 
108th  New  York  State  Volunteers,  and  in  1864  he  died 
at  Rochester,  of  disease  contracted  in  the  service. 
In  these  circumstances  the  nephew  assumed  the  cares 
and  duties  of  an  elder  son  and  brother,  and  gave  much 
assistance  in  the  teaching  of  the  Academy.  Later  his 
marriage  with  his  imcle's  eldest  daughter  only  made 
stronger  the  loving  ties  already  happily  formed. 

G.  P.  N.  to  D.  B.  N. 

Windsor,  April,   1861. 
What  shall  I  say  of  myself?     Teaching  in  Wamer- 
ville, a  new  school  established  last  autumn,  eighty  students  the 


MEMOIR  13 

past  term.  I  seem  to  have  been  moderately  successful.  A  pe- 
tition from  the  students  has  been  presented  desiring  to  make 
me  principal,  which  I  declined.  I  have  engaged  myself  for 
another  year.  A  proposal  has  just  been  extended  to  remain 
five  years.  I  shall  refuse.  I  hope  to  commence  my  studies 
for  the  ministry  in  the  fall. 

To  S.  J.  N. 

Wamerville,  May,  1862. 
Your  letter  was  a  flower  and  a  feast,  true  to  yourself,  kind 
and  faithful  to  me,  and  withal  so  discerning  and  delicate.  I 
am  well  pleased  to  be  called  the  child  of  your  adoption,  your 
boy.  Well,  I  will  love  you  and  trust  you,  and  perhaps  by 
and  by,  as  you  lead  me  up  to  higher  truths  and  a  better  man- 
hood than  I  now  know,  my  continued  delight  and  increasing 
strength  will  give  you  pleasure,  ^nd  lend  fresh  expression  to 
my  gratitude.  But  I  am  only  a  child  now.  I  wish  I  was  really 
a  child,  or  rather  I  wish  I  had  commenced  to  love  Christ  when 
I  was  a  small,  a  very  small  boy — when  I  was  credulous  and 
trustful.  That  accursed  college  skepticism,  I  fear  it  will  creep 
in  and  disturb  my  peace  forever 

To  S.  J.  N. 

Wamerville,  June,  1862. 

I  cannot  get  close  enough  to  Christ.    I  wish  you  would 

ask  Him  to  fold  me  nearer  to  His  bosom I  think  I 

should  like  to  join  the  church  again  by  confession,  but  not  yet. 
What  do  you  think?  But  I  suppose  you  do  not  know  my  heart 
well  enough  to  say.     Write  me  a  very  long  letter,  and  love  me. 

To  S.  J.  N. 

Albany,  August,  1862. 

I  go  home  this  afternoon.  Please  write  me  there,  will  you, 
dear  mother,  just  a  little  reference  to  the  war.  The  necessity 
of  the  country  seems  to  put  aside  all  private  interests,  and  I 
think  my  — .  I  think  I  should  like  to  join  the  church  in 
Rochester,  whether  I  go  to  the  Seminary  or  elsewhere.  I  was 
named  First  Lieutenant  of  a  company  in  Wamerville,  but 
resigned  for  several  reasons. 


14  MEMOIR 

To  S.  J.  N. 

Windsor,  August,  1862. 
It  seems  a  long  time  since  I  wrote  to  you,  and  I  begin  to 
feel  how  strong  an  influence  both  to  restrain  from  sin  and  to 
strengthen  in  steadfast  abiding  faith  in  Christ  you  hold  over 

me.    I  thank  God  for  you As  to  my  letter  from  Albany — 

for  some  weeks  I  have  felt  that  it  was  the  duty  of  every 
man  to  give  his  strength  to  the  country,  not  to  pray  alone, 
for  God  does  not  work  without  means  often,  but  to  put 
his  right  arm  forward I  thought  to  go  from  Massa- 
chusetts, that  my  friends  might  oftener  know  my  whereabouts 
and  whatabouts.  I  spoke  to  Father  in  reference  to  the  matter 
when  I  came  home,  he  objected  very  strongly.  If  I  do  not  go, 
and  can  be  of  use  to  you  in  Eochester,  I  shall  not  willingly  go 
to  Princeton.  That  can  be  discussed  when  I  come  to  E.  the 
last  of  this  month. 

Your  fond  child, 

Parsons. 

As  these  letters  show,  in  his  college  life  their  writer 
had  passed  through  a  period  of  doubts  and  disre- 
regard  of  some  church  observances,  and  he  felt  it 
more  manly  and  honorable  to  his  Lord  and  to  himself 
to  make  a  second  public  consecration  of  himself  to 
His  service.  Accordingly  he  was  received  into  the 
communion  of  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  of 
Rochester  in  September,  1862.  Immediately  there- 
after he  went  to  Princeton  Theological  Seminary,  to 
prepare  himself  for  the  ministry.  He  went  through 
the  course  of  three  years,  and  greatly  enjoyed  his 
studious  life  there.  During  all  his  time  at  Princeton 
most  full  and  beautiful  letters  were  sent  regularly  to 
the  Rochester  home,  especially  to  Mrs.  James  Nichols. 


MEMOIR  15 

To  S.  J.  N. 

Princeton,  Nov.,  1863. 

How  infinitely  kind  of  our  dear  Eedeemer  to  make  us 

even  here  in  some  sort  partakers  of  His  glory,  to  use  you  in 
80  great  a  degree  for  my  edification,  and  to  use  me,  though  it 
be  ever  so  little,  for  your  comfort.  Yet  how  unworthy!  And 
how  truly  says  the  Apostle  ' '  by  the  foolishness  of  preaching ' ' ! 
Yet  He  does  so  use  us,  and  every  day  I  thank  God  for  you,  as 
I  think  how  much  He  has  used  you  to  build  me  up,  and  en- 
courage me  to  perseverance,  and  remove  my  fears.  It  seems 
almost  that,  like  the  churches  of  St.  Paul,  I  am  the  fruit  of 
your  hands,  your  child  in  Christ. 

To  S.  J.  N. 

Princeton,  Jan.,  1865. 

It  is  indeed  a  marvellous  way  by  which  God  has  led 

me  through  the  instrumentality  of  kind  friends  from  the  hoe 
and  shovel  to  the  study  of  the  glorious  gospel.  My  life  ought 
to  be  entirely  consecrated  to  God  for  this  reason,  were  there  no 
other.  But  I  never  can  forget  the  instruments  which  God  used 
to  accomplish  nearly  all  this.  My  mother  often  whispered  such 
things  in  my  ear  when  I  was  still  young,  but  the  only  way  she 
could  see  by  which  it  could  be  accomplished  was  in  some  way 
through  Uncle  James.  There  is  little  doubt  ihat  that  was  the 
only  way. 

Your  boy  Parsons. 

Mr.  Nichols  was  licensed  to  preach  by  the  Presby- 
tery of  Rochester  City  in  May,  1865.  But  an  illness 
with  typhoid  fever  in  the  autumn  of  this  year  inter- 
rupted his  progress  toward  the  ministry.  He  de- 
clined the  call  of  the  Calvary  Presbyterian  Church  of 
Rochester,  and  taught  in  the  Academy  there,  preach- 
ing occasionally,  until  June  of  1866.  Then  he  went 
to  the  charge  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Victor, 
New  York,  a  village  near  Rochester,  ''my  Eden"  as 


16  MEMOIR 

he  always  called  it.  It  was  not  until  May  1,  1867, 
that  he  was  ordained  to  the  ministry,  in  the  church 
of  his  membership,  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  of 
Rochester. 

No  account  of  his  life  would  be  complete  without 
reference  to  the  great  gift  of  friends  to  care  for  him 
which  God  granted  him  in  every  place.  This  was 
especially  true  in  Victor ;  and  those  who  have  derived 
help  and  inspiration  from  his  preaching  owe  it  in 
great  measure  to  the  wise  and  appreciative  encourage- 
ment of  Mr.  D.  Henry  Osborne,  without  which  Mr. 
Nichols  always  felt  he  would  have  left  the  ministry. 
Mr.  Osborne's  beautiful  home  was  like  a  father's 
house  to  him,  and  there  he  was  not  only  the  esteemed 
minister,  but  also  the  petted  son.  Many  times  during 
the  first  year  he  would  say  on  Sunday  night,  in  real 
and  utter  despair, ' '  I  can  never  write  another  sermon. 
I  shall  pack  my  books  in  the  morning  and  go  back  to 
teaching."  *'Eat  your  bread  and  milk;  we  will  see 
about  that,"  Mr.  Osborne  would  say.  Then  after 
some  wise  praise  he  would  go  on,  ''Next  Sunday 
night  you  preach  what  you  preached  last  Sunday 
morning.  We  shall  all  be  glad  to  heart  it.  You  can 
think  up  something  for  next  Sunday  morning.  Go 
up  to  Rochester  for  a  day  or  two. ' '  This  programme 
was  literally  carried  out  often  during  that  year.  In 
the  second  year  a  blessed  revival  of  God's  Spirit  came 
to  the  church.  More  than  sixty  persons,  mostly 
adults,  were  added  to  it.  And  never  after  that  did 
Mr.  Nichols  desire  to  do  anything  but  preach. 


MEMOIR  17 

The  Rochester  family  were  all  made  most  welcome 
in  the  Osborne  home,  and  it  was  there,  in  June  of 
1867,  that  words  of  betrothal  were  spoken  with  Delia 
B.  Nichols.  Since  her  help  was  needed  at  home,  the 
marriage  was  delayed  until  June  of  1871. 

To  D.  B.  N. 

Victor,  Jan.,  1868. 
I  am  afraid  I  shall  be  disappointed  of  seeing  you  this  week. 

I  don 't  know  that  I  should  say  ' '  I  am  afraid  of  being 

disappointed" — I  ought  to  rejoice  that  I  have  such  a  cause 
for  sacrificing  my  pleasure.  It  seems,  Darling,  as  if  the  won- 
derful Fire  were  indeed  burning  in  our  hearts.  The  Week  of 
Prayer  was  marked  by  good  attendance  and  a  prayerful  spirit. 
Sabbath  morning  I  preached  from  the  parable  of  the  lost  sheep. 
We  had  a  prayer-meeting  Sabbath  evening  before  service,  and 
requests  were  made  that  meetings  for  prayer  and  conference 
be  held  during  the  earlier  part  of  the  week.  Eather  against  my 
judgment  I  appointed  meetings  each  evening  until  Thursday. 
To-night,  much  less  against  it,  I  gave  notice  of  meetings  during 

the   remainder   of   the   week Eequests   for   prayers   have 

been  brought  in,  about  a  dozen  in  all,  by  the  unconverted. 
And  now,  my  Dear  One,  pray  for  me 

To  B.  B.  N. 

Victor,  Jan.,  1868. 

God   is    still   very   merciful   to   His   church.      Mr.   — 

feels  that  he  is  forgiven.  Mr.  —  hopes  he  is  found  of  the 
Saviour.  Mr.  —  arose  in  this  evening's  prayer-meeting  and 
gave  in  his  determination,  and  asked  the  intercession  of  Chris- 
tians. These  are  all  members  of  my  Bible  class.  Mr.  — 
gives  touching  evidence  of  a  new  birth.  He  also  is  the  head  of 
a  family.  Is  it  not  wonderful  and  wonderfully  delightful? 
It  is  a  very  pleasant  thing  to  think  I  am  in  your  even- 
ing worship.  Will  you  not  remember  my  Bible  class?  I  think 
of  only  one  unconcerned  person  in  it. 


18  MEMOIR 

To  D.  B.  N. 

Victor,  Jan.  31,  1868. 

About  the  revival — we  are  like  them  that  dream ;  like 

the  streams  of  the  south  is  our  captivity  turned.  Including 
Mr.  P.,  we  have  now  nine  young  married  men  who  have  come 
over  to  the  side  of  the  Lord  and  His  church,  six  married  ladies 
and  ten  or  twelve  unmarried  ladies,  two  or  three  boys  and  as 
many  girls,  and  we  hope  that  the  Lord  still  has  gracious  pur- 
poses toward  us.  There  are  yet  two  classes  whose  ranks  are 
almost  unbroken,  persons  past  the  age  of  forty  and  under  that 
of  twenty  on  the  side  of  the  males.  The  attendance  increases. 
We  have  a  young  men's  prayer-meeting  conducted  by  them- 
selves. Praise  the  Lord  for  His  goodness;  and  yet  I  tremble 
at  such  mercy 

To  D.  B.  N. 

Victor,  May,  1868. 

There  is  hardly  anything  so  rich  and  suggestive  as 

the  Sacrament  of  the  Holy  Communion.  And  the  miracles,  too, 
are  opening  up  to  me  quite  as  richly  as  did  the  parables,  only 
I  cannot  manage  to  present  their  riches  in  so  attractive  a  form. 
I  have  preached  upon  two,  without  gaining  much  interest  for 
either  one.  It  is  too  bad,  for  I  think  the  people  are  losing 
precious  truth  in  not  getting  hold  of  them.  Perhaps  I  shall 
find  some  better  plan  for  bringing  them  out  sometime 

To  D,  B.  N. 

Victor,  June,  1869. 

Your  letter  Saturday  night  did  me  a  great  deal  of 

good.  I  had  concluded,  but  it  was  more  a  result  of  feeling  than 
of  judgment,  not  to  say  anything  on  the  Sabbath  about  my 
personal  relations  to  the  church;  but  you  spoke  out  so  warmly 
that  I  was  touched  as  with  a  spark,  and  one  of  the  memories 
I  had  when  I  arose  next  day  in  church  was  of  your  ''three 
happy  good  years.''  And  so  you  helped  me  more  perhaps  than 
you  thought 


MEMOIR  19 

Mr.  Nichols  lived  in  Victor  ''three  happy  good 
years,"  and  in  September  of  1869  went  thence  to  the 
Olivet  Presbyterian  Church  of  Chicago.  Very  soon 
after  takmg  up  this  charge,  he  had  a  serious  illness, 
but  the  kindest  of  friends  were  again  given  to  him. 
The  hospitable  home  of  Mr.  Edward  Ely  was  opened 
to  him,  and  became  his  home  during  his  stay  in 
Chicago.  This  lasted  only  until  the  union  of  the 
Olivet  Church  and  the  Second  Presbyterian  Church 
could  be  arranged.  The  union  was  felt  by  all  con- 
cerned to  be  wise,  and  both  ministers  resigned  in  order 
to  effect  it. 

In  March,  1871,  Mr.  Nichols  accepted  the  call  of 
Immanuel  Presbyterian  Church  of  Milwaukee,  and 
immediately  went  there.  This  church  had  just  been 
formed  by  the  joining  of  an  Old  School  and  a  New 
School  church,  and  by  characteristic  tact  and  skill 
he  moulded  the  united  body  into  one  harmonious 
whole.  Shortly  after  his  coming,  the  church  received 
large  accessions  from  two  Congregational  churches,  so 
that  the  Immanuel  congregation  was  one  of  extraor- 
dinary strength. 

Those  who  remember  the  acknowledged  leadership 
of  Mr.  Nichols  in  both  the  Milwaukee  and  Binghamton 
presbyteries  will  be  interested  in  the  following  note. 

To  S.  J.  N. 

Chicago,  March,  1871. 

I  have  pretty  much  decided  to   go  to   Milwaukee A 

point  upon  which  I  have  many  fears  as  to  my  ability  is  the 
leading  position  which  the  church  holds  and  which  the  pastor 


20  MEMOIR 

must  take  in  all  tlie  ecclesiastical  matters  of  the  state.  As  you 
know,  I  have  neither  skill,  experience  nor  taste  for  that  branch 
of  work.  Sometimes  it  looks  positively  impossible  to  meet  that 
demand.  I  think  the  church  is  apprehensive  upon  this  point  as 
well  as  myself. 

In  June  of  1871  he  brought  his  bride  to  Milwaukee, 
and  for  ten  happy  years  that  was  his  home.  His  five 
children  were  born  during  this  time.  They  were 
years  of  incessant  labor  in  the  church,  as  is  attested 
by  the  following  resolutions,  adopted  by  the  congrega- 
tion of  Immanuel  Church  at  the  end  of  them. 

' '  Whereas  our  beloved  pastor,  the  Eeverend  G.  P.  Nichols,  has 
tendered  his  absolute  and  unconditional  resignation,  for  reasons 
deemed  by  him  'imperative  and  providential,'  of  the  pastorate 
held  by  him  for  a  period  of  more  than  ten  years  in  this  church 
and  society,  and 

Whereas  we  are  called  upon  to  assent  to  the  dissolution  of 
the  relations  which  have  so  long  and  so  pleasantly  existed  be- 
tween pastor  and  people, 

Eesolved,    That  we,  the  members  of  Immanuel  Church  and 

Society, deein   it   but    an   act   of   simple   justice   to   our 

pastor,  as  well  as  a  duty  we  owe  ourselves,  that  in  assenting 
to  his  request  for  a  dissolution  of  his  pastoral  relations  with 
this  people,  we  should  accompany  such  assent  with  a  public 
recognition  of  the  faithfulness,  the  devotion,  and  the  marked 

success,  which  have  characterized  these  years  of  service 

To  show  that  this  stewardship  has  been  crovmed  with  the 
tokens  of  divine  favor,  it  is  only  necessary  to  refer  to  the 
facts  that  the  membership  of  the  church  has  increased  from 
about  200  to  520;  that  the  aggregate  attendance  upon  the 
Sabbath  services  has  been  largely  augmented;  that  the  weekly 
prayer-meeting  has  been  rendered  one  of  the  most  agreeable 
and  interesting  of  all  the  church  gatherings;  that  two  mission 
churches  have  been  established,  both  of  which  are  prosperous 
and  accomplishing  an  important  work  in  the  community;  and 


MEMOIR  21 

that  a  magnificent  church  edifice  has  been  erected,  the  entire 
cost  of  which  has  been  liquidated  during  this  period. 

Toi  sever  relations  which  have  continued,  with  such  unmis- 
takable marks  of  the  Divine  blessing,  for  a  period  of  ten  years, 
and  have  never  been  disturbed  by  one  moment  of  discord, 
can  but  be  regarded  as  an  event  of  deep  interest  to  all  con- 
cerned, and  of  solemn  far-reaching  import In  yielding  to 

the  request  of  our  pastor  in  this  regard,  we  cannot  do  less  than 
testify  our  appreciation  of  the  loss  sustained  in  the  surrender 
of  a  pastor  endeared  to  us  by  years  of  pleasant  intercourse,  and 
by  a  multitude  of  tender  and  impressive  memories  of  a  scholarly 
and  able  sermonizer,  who  has  few  superiors  in  the  pulpit  and 
none  in  the  social  prayer-meeting,  and  whose  felicitous  ad- 
dresses on  many  special  occasions  of  public  inteiest  have  re- 
flected honor  upon  the  church;  of  a  courteous  Christian  gentle- 
man more  solicitous  to  serve  others  than  himself,  and  of  a 
public-spirited  and  worthy  citizen.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  there 
is  not  a  member  of  this  church  or  society,  old  or  young,  who 
cherishes  other  than  the  kindest  sentiments  and  the  most  affec- 
tionate regard  for  our  pastor  and  every  member  of  his  house- 
hold; not  one  who  will  not  follow  them  with  the  earnest  desire 
and  prayer  that  the  choicest  blessings  of  our  common  Master 
may  rest  upon  them  and  abide  with  them  wherever  their  lot 
may  fall.'' 

While  he  was  living  in  Milwaukee  Mr.  Nichols  was 
for  several  years  a  trustee  of  Lake  Forest  University, 
and  at  the  end  of  his  service,  in  1881,  the  university 
conferred  upon  him  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity. 

He  hoped  for  a  year's  rest  after  laying  down  his 
Milwaukee  pastorate,  his  church  having  given  him 
full  salary  for  six  months  to  come,  and  with  this  in 
view  he  took  his  family  to  Rochester  in  June  of  1881. 
But  he  rested  only  until  September  of  that  year, 
when  he  received  calls  to  Calvary  Presbyterian  Church 
of  Buffalo  and  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  of  Bing- 


22  MEMOIR 

hamton.  After  much  thought  choice  was  made  of  the 
smaller  church,  which  seemed  to  suggest  less  work  and 
a  quieter  home  for  the  family,  and  he  removed  to 
Binghamton  in  November,  1881.  The  hand  of  the 
Lord  was  evidently  in  this  choice,  and  for  the  rest  of 
his  life,  except  for  a  few  months,  the  church  in  Bing- 
hamton was  his  beloved  home.  The  interruption  of 
his  residence  there  resulted  from  a  call  to  the  pastor- 
ate of  the  Central  Presbyterian  Church  of  Denver, 
given  in  the  autumn  of  1887.  This  he  conditionally 
accepted,  and  he  went  to  Denver  in  November  of  that 
year.  But  his  wife  was  unable  to  endure  the  altitude 
of  the  place.  In  June  of  the  next  year  he  returned  to 
the  church  in  Binghamton,  which  had  kept  their 
home  for  the  family  and  the  pulpit  for  the  minister, 
to  finish  his  days  there  amid  the  universal  and  un- 
feigned esteem  and  affection  of  those  he  loved. 

Dr.  Nichols  remained  pastor  of  the  First  Church 
of  Binghamton  until  January  1,  1906,  when  failing 
health  compelled  him  to  resign  the  charge.  He  was 
then  named  Pastor  Emeritus  of  the  church,  with 
salary,  and  so  continued  until  his  death.  During  his 
pastorate  in  Binghamton  he  received  several  calls  and 
offers  of  them  from  various  places,  including  second 
calls  from  Immanuel  Church  of  Milwaukee  and  Cal- 
vary of  Buffalo.  Some  of  these  opportunities  were 
very  attractive  financially,  but  Dr.  Nichols  loved 
the  church  in  Binghamton  and  its  people,  and  knew 
that  they  loved  him,  and  refused  to  be  tempted  away. 

The  following  extract  from  a  historical  account 


MEMOIR  23 

of  the  First  Church  of  Binghamton  gives  some  idea 
of  his  work  there:  ''The  phenomenal  growth  and 
development  of  the  church  during  the  tenth  and  long- 
est pastorate  of  its  history  is  to  be  chiefly  referred 
to  the  spirit  of  mutual  love,  unbroken  amity,  and 
hearty  co-operation  manifested  by  the  people  them- 
selves. The  love-knot  of  peace  and  like-mindedness 
one  with  another  was  the  grand  secret  of  all  our  in- 
crease in  numbers,  labor,  and  offerings The 

principal  features  of  this  quarter  of  a  century  of  the 
church's  history  were  its  large  Sunday  congregations, 
its  enriched  service  of  worship,  its  inspiring  prayer- 
meetings,  its  extended  Sunday-school  operations,  its 
church-erection  and  church-extension  enterprises  in 
the  outlying  districts  of  the  city,  its  removal  of 
church-debt,  its  increased  benevolent  contributions, 
its  rehabilitated  house  of  worship,  its  missionary  ope- 
rations, its  fruits  of  soul-winning  labor,  and  the  con- 
tinuous increase  of  its  membership. ' '  Eighteen  hun- 
dred and  seventy-nine  persons  were  received  into  the 
church  during  this  period.  The  offerings  of  the  people 
for  congregational  expenses  were  $213,651,  and  for 
benevolent  purposes  $219,641. 

Dr.  Nichols  was  a  loyal  and  enthusiastic  Presby- 
terian. It  was  largely  due  to  his  efforts  that  three 
Presbyterian  churches  were  established  in  new  sec- 
tions of  Binghamton  during  his  pastorate.  For  many 
years  he  administered  the  work  of  Synodical  Home 
Missions  in  his  presbytery  with  great  efficiency,  main- 
taining existing  churches  and  planting  new  ones.    Yet 


24  MEMOIR 

perhaps  the  chief  characteristic  of  both  his  thinking 
and  his  ministry  was  their  true  Christian  catholicity. 
He  made  much  of  the  things  that  are  common  to  all 
Christians,  and  little  of  those  that  separate  them.  He 
knew  and  drew  inspiration  from  the  great  men  of  all 
parts  and  ages  of  the  Church.  Did  space  permit  giv- 
ing it,  a  list  of  titles  of  sermons  would  show  the  wide 
range  of  his  subjects.  A  series  of  evening  sermons 
on  the  leaders  of  the  medieval  Church,  St.  Bernard 
of  Clairvaux,  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  and  others,  at- 
tracted special  attention.  A  Eoman  Catholic  priest 
once  publicly  advised  his  congregation  to  hear  these, 
and  at  the  time  of  Dr.  Nichols'  death  favorable  com- 
ment upon  them  appeared  in  the  papers  representing 
this  communion.  He  earnestly  desired  the  unity  of 
the  Church,  and  in  regard  to  the  placing  of  new 
churches  strove  for  arrangements  of  comity  between 
denominations,  to  prevent  competition  and  duplica- 
tion of  effort.  He  recognized  all  Christians  as  his 
brothers  in  Christ,  and  this  spirit  of  his  won  response 
from  ministers  and  laymen  of  all  names. 

Two  special  features  of  his  pastoral  administration 
may  be  mentioned.  He  greatly  loved  beauty  and  dig- 
nity in  public  worship,  and  was  one  of  the  pioneers 
among  Presbyterians  in  the  use  of  enriched  orders  of 
service.  In  work  for  young  people  he  was  also  early 
in  the  field,  organizing  in  1882  a  young  people's 
society  according  to  plans  of  his  own,  which  provided 
for  almost  all  the  activities  that  have  since  become 
universal  in  such  societies. 


MEMOIR  25 

Dr.  Nichols  had  an  ilhiess  in  the  summer  of  1904, 
and  only  partially  recovered  from  it,  but  he  continued 
to  be  of  much  service  to  the  congregation.  An  extract 
from  a  friend's  letter  is  the  best  comment  on  this 

part  of  his  life :  '' Did  he  not  fight  a  good  fight, 

those  four  long  years  of  weariness  and  pain  and  heart- 
breaking recognition  that  his  beautiful  work  was 
not  to  be  continued?  That  seems  to  me  the  most 
pathetic  part  for  him,  to  know  he  could  do  so  much 
so  well,  and  wait  patiently  while  another  stood  in  his 
place.  He  never  was  so  fine  to  me  as  in  the  way 
he  accepted  this  hard  lot  for  such  a  man,  and  greeted 
us  with  that  heavenly  spirit  and  face.  His  beautiful 
bowed  head  in  the  last  hymn  that  last  Sunday  morn- 
ing I  saw  him  (do  look  in  the  hymn-book,  761 — 

'My  journey  soon  will  end, 

My  staff  and  scrip  laid  down; 
Oh!  tempt  me  not  witli  earthly  toys, 

I  go  to  wear  a  crown.') 

will  always  be  remembered.  I  felt  that  he  felt  the 
words  and  I  might  never  see  him  there  again.  It  is 
such  a  satisfaction  that  those  last  services  and  words 
should  have  been  so  fitting  for  such  a  life.  The 
editorials  in  the  Republican  and  Judge  Lyon's  re- 
marks on  adjourning  court  were  as  you  felt  they 
should  be,  appreciative  of  what  is  highest  in  char- 
acter, which  they  paused  long  enough  in  these  scurry- 
ing days  to  recognize. ' ' 

During  the  summer  of  1908  Dr.  Nichols  seemed 


26  MEMOIR 

stronger,  and  with  his  children  and  grandchildren 
around  him  enjoyed  his  summer  home  on  Mount 
Prospect.  His  children  are  Eeverend  Robert  Hastings 
Nichols,  Ph.D.,  of  Trinity  Presbyterian  Church,  South 
Orange,  N.  J.,  Mrs.  William  H.  Smith,  of  East 
Orange,  N.  J.,  Captain  Henry  J.  Nichols,  M.D.,  of 
the  United  States  Army  Medical  Corps,  Miss  Content 
Shepard  Nichols,  instructor  in  Bryn  Mawr  College, 
and  James  K.  Nichols,  attorney-at-law,  of  Bingham- 
ton. 

To  D.  B.  N. 

San  Francisco,  July,  1876. 
" Well,  life  is  a  blessed  thing  to  have  with  such  a  wife- 
love God  is  good  to  have  made  you  and  given  you  to 

me.'' 

To  D.  B.  N. 

Estes  Park,  Colo.,  July,  1898. 
*'How  good  God  has  been  to  us,  an  unbroken  family,  and 
how  much  joy  has  come  to  me  through  you,  and  through  all  and 
each " 

In  July  and  August  of  1908  Dr.  Nichols  was  able 
to  do  some  pastoral  work,  and  officiated  at  several 
funerals.  He  was  apparently  quite  well  until  early 
in  September,  when  a  general  break-down  occurred, 
and  after  an  illness  of  ten  days  he  died  at  his  home 
on  September  17.  The  end  was  remarkably  peaceful, 
and  the  family  gathered  at  the  bedside  were  unaware 
of  the  exact  moment  of  dissolution.  He  died  as  he 
had  always  liked  to  say  of  the  deaths  of  others,  and 
as  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  says  of  David,  '*  having 


MEMOIR  27 

served  his  generation  by  the  will  of  God,  he  fell  on 
sleep. ' '  Until  an  hour  or  two  before  his  death  he  was 
able  to  recognize  his  children,  all  of  whom  except 
Captain  Nichols  were  at  the  bedside.  He  missed 
this  son,  and  spoke  his  name  once  or  twice,  and  said 
**Are  all  five  hereT'  shortly  before  he  died.  He 
faintly  repeated  the  first  words  of  the  Twenty-third 
Psalm  and  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  they  were  repeated 
by  the  family. 

"Nothing  is  here  for  tears;  nothing  to  wail, 
To  knock  the  breast;  no  weakness,  no  contempt. 
Dispraise,  or  blame ;  nothing  but  well  and  fair. 
And  what  may  quiet  us  in  a  death  so  noble. ' ' 

The  funeral  service  was  held  in  the  First  Church 
on  September  21.  After  prayers  at  the  house  the 
body  of  Dr.  Nichols  was  taken  to  the  church,  and 
during  three  hours  many  came  to  see  the  loved  face 
for  the  last  time.  A  detail  from  the  Sixth  Battery, 
N.  G.  S.  N.  Y.,  of  which  Dr.  Nichols  was  Chaplain, 
and  officers  of  the  church  stood  as  guard  of  honor  at 
this  time.  The  beautiful  church  was  made  more  beau- 
tiful by  a  profusion,  of  flowers  which  filled  every  space 
around  the  pulpit  and  chancel,  and  no  blackness 
marred  the  beauty  of  it  all.  The  service  itself,  ac- 
cording to  the  family's  wish,  was  most  simple.  The 
Reverend  John  J.  Lawrence,  Dr.  Nichols'  successor, 
read  a  Scripture  lesson,  and  also  the  three  hymns 
which  he  had  repeated  in  his  last  hours,  Faber's  **My 
God,  how  wonderful  Thou  art,"  ''There  is  a  green 
hill  far  away,"  and  Wesley's  **0  love  divine,  how 


28  MEMOIR 

sweet  thou  art.''  One  of  the  sweet  singers  of  the 
choir  sang  ''I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth,"  from 
**The  Messiah."  Three  hymns  were  sung  by  the 
congregation.  Dr.  Nichols'  long-time  friend,  the  Rev- 
erend John  McVey,  D.D.,  of  Binghamton,  offered 
prayer  and  gave  the  benediction.  The  burial  was  pri- 
vate, in  Spring  Forest  Cemetery,  in  a  place  of  his 
own  choosing,  the  bearers  being  chosen  from  the  three 
boards  of  officers  of  the  church.  In  accordance  with 
the  request  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  a  very  great 
token  of  respect  was  paid  in  the  general  closing  of 
places  of  business  in  the  city  at  the  time  of  the 
funeral. 

On  the  following  Sunday  afternoon,  September  27, 
the  church  was  again  filled  for  a  memorial  service. 
Tender  and  appreciative  resolutions  were  read  from 
the  Presbytery  of  Binghamton  and  the  Session  and 
Boards  of  Deacons  and  Trustees  of  the  church.  Mr. 
Albert  B.  Brown  gave  **A  Personal  Tribute  to  Dr. 
Nichols,"  Rev.  Dr.  McVey  ''The  Testimony  of  A 
Long  Friendship,"  Rev.  Dr.  Phillips  ''A  Tribute  of 
A  Neighboring  Pastor, ' '  and  Rev.  Mr.  Lawrence  ' '  The 
Appreciation  of  a  Colleague,"  all  most  loving  and 
true  in  their  memories  and  estimates.  Memorial  serv- 
ices were  held  also  in  Immanuel  Church  of  Milwaukee 
and  the  Central  Church  of  Denver,  and  resolutions 
there  adopted  were  sent  to  Dr.  Nichols'  family. 

Below  are  quoted  several  expressions  of  opinion  con- 
cerning Dr.  Nichols  and  his  ministry,  made  at  the 
time  of  his  death. 


MEMOIR  29 

From  the  Binghamton  Republican,  September  18, 
1908: 

77?^  Passing  of  a   Great  Soul. 

In  the  death  of  the  Eeverend  Doctor  Nichols  the  shadow  of 
a  great  grief  has  fallen  upon  this  city. 

Not  within  the  memory  of  this  generation  has  death  smitten 
so  many  hearts  with  a  single  blow. 

Thousands  who  have  sat  under  his  ministration,  whose  child- 
hood has  been  consecrated  by  his  baptismal  touch,  whose  earli- 
est thought  of  Christian  faith  and  duty  has  fallen  from  his  life, 
whose  conception  of  God's  love  and  goodness  has  taken  root 
and  blossomed  out  under  his  luminous  teaching,  whose  love  has 
been  crowned  and  blessed  by  him  in  the  most  sacred  union  and 
relations  of  life,  whose  grief -stricken  hearts  have  been  com- 
forted by  his  sympathy,  tender  and  deep  as  the  love  of  woman, 
— all  these  must  feel  that  the  emblem  of  mourning  is  on  their 
own  doors  and  the  shadow  in  their  own  homes. 

Action  of  the  Binghamton  Chamber  of  Commerce, 
September  19,  1908 : 

''Inasmuch  as  the  Eev.  Dr.  G.  Parsons  Nichols,  who  passed 
into  his  rest  on  Thursday,  September  17,  was  for  over  a 
quarter  of  a  century  so  closely  allied  and  prominently  identified 
with  the  civic  and  spiritual  growth  of  Binghamton,  the  city 
which  he  deeply  loved,  and  in  view  of  the  fact  that  his  benign 
and  powerful  influence  extended  beyond  the  confines  of  his 
parish  and  spread  broadcast  throughout  our  city,  the  Bingham- 
ton Chamber  of  Commerce  recommends  and  respectfully  asks 
that  the  places  of  business  in  the  city  close  on  Monday,  Sep- 
tember 21,  at  four  o'clock,  for  the  day,  as  a  mark  of  esteem 
and  respect  to  the  memory  of  one  who  was  dearly  beloved  and 
revered  by  the  community  at  large,  and  as  an  evidence  of  ap- 
preciation of  the  widespread  good  which  he,  in  his  lifetime 
among  us,  dispensed  in  a  boundless  manner,  irrespective  of 
creed,  denomination,  commercial  or  social  standing." 

William  H.  Hecox,  President, 
Byres    H.    Gitchell,    Secretary. 


30  MEMOIR 

Words  of  Mr.  Justice  George  F.  Lyon,  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  New  York,  in  adjourning  court  at  the 
Court  House  in  Binghamton  at  noon  on  the  day  of 
the  funeral: 

''A  great  sorrow  has  befallen  our  community.  Eev.  Dr. 
Nichols,  who  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  has  ministered  among 
us,  has  passed  from  the  earthly  life  to  the  life  immortal.  Of 
broad  and  brilliant  intellect,  eloquent,  forceful,  courageous, 
courteous,  tactful,  sympathetic,  of  great  personal  charm  and 
magnetism,  yet  he  possessed  all  the  tenderness,  and  trustful- 
ness, and  simplicity  of  a  child.  The  broad  influence  for  good 
of  such  a  consecrated  life  cannot  be  well  measured.  A  lover 
of  truth  and  justice,  his  voice  was  ever  given  to  upholding  the 
courts  in  the  just  and  impartial  administration  of  the  law.  At 
the  end,  a  noble  Christian  life  was  crowned  by  a  beautiful 
Christian  death. 

"It  is  the  desire  of  the  Court,  and  of  many  of  the  attorneys 
and  jurors  in  attendance,  to  be  present  at  the  funeral  services 
which  are  to  be  held  at  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  at  four 
o  'clock  this  afternoon.  In  order  to  permit  such  attendance,  and 
out  of  respect  for  the  memory  of  the  good  man,  the  afternoon 
session  of  this  Court  will  close  at  half -past  three  o  'clock,  and  an 
adjournment  will  be  taken  until  half -past  nine  o'clock  to-mor- 
row morning." 

From  the  Binghamton  Republican^  September  22, 
1908: 

Honoring  Binghamton. 
The  tribute  paid  to  the  memory  of  Dr.  Nichols  yesterday  by 
the  people  of  this  city,  by  the  closing  of  business  houses  and 
courts  and  by  the  immense  audience  which  gathered  to  offer 
their  silent  and  often  tearful  testimony  of  love  and  veneration, 
is  something  that  must  give  every  one  in  this  city  a  deep  sense 
of  civic  pride.  It  shows  how  nobly  this  community  will  respond 
to  the  very  highest  and  best  in  human  character  and  example — 
how  keenly  appreciative  it  is  of  the  most  spiritual  teaching  and 


MEMOIR  31 

the  noblest  ideals  of  life.  It  has  therefore  quite  unconsciously 
honored  itself  in  honoring  one  who  was  conspicuously  the  em- 
bodiment of  those  rare  qualities  which  enrich  the  character 
along  spiritual  lines  and  lift  it  into  a  saintly  atmosphere. 

Here  was  a  man  who  won  no  distinction  in  spectacular  fields 
appealing  to  the  imagination,  no  honor  in  public  achievement; 
unheralded  by  the  ''trumpet  that  sounds  of  fame";  a  simple 
teacher  who  taught,  and  lived  as  he  taught,  the  fatherhood  of 
God,  the  fellowship  of  Christ,  the  brotherhood  of  man,  the 
exceeding  beauty  of  truth  and  honor  and  righteousness.  And 
as  he  taught  from  year  to  year  his  range  of  spiritual  vision 
seemed  to  enlarge  until  it  became  almost  prophetic;  the  spirit 
of  Christ  grew  up  within  him,  strong,  resolute,  yet  full  of  the 
deepest  love  and  sympathy — ^the  noble  courage  of  Paul  and 
Peter  blended  with  the  sweetness  and  tenderness  of  the  Beloved 
Disciple. 

And  yet  this  modest,  child-like,  Christ-like  teacher  Bingham- 
ton  is  honoring  with  speech  and  pen,  with  bowed  heads,  heart- 
ache and  tears,  as  it  has  honored  no  other  citizen  within  the 
memory  of  living  men.  It  is  well  to  live  in  a  town  that  is  thus 
mindful  of  the  noblest  in  human  character  and  the  "Greatest 
Thing  in  the  World." 

Extracts    from   an    appreciation    of   Dr.    Nichols' 

preaching,   written   by  one   long   a   member   of  his 

church,  printed  in  the  Binghamton  Press,  September 

21,1908: 

The  active  ministry  of  G.  Parsons  Nichols  marks  an  epoch 
in  the  spiritual  and  intellectual  life  of  this  community.  Com- 
ing here  in  the  fullness  of  his  powers  he  gave  to  his  church 
and  city  the  choicest  results  of  an  ample  endowment  and  ade- 
quate preparation.  He  had  scholarship,  not  specialization. 
His  reading  in  the  English  classics  had  been  vride  and  sympa- 
thetic. He  had  mastered  the  art  of  public  speaking  and  the 
display  of  its  range  and  power,  on  occasion,  became  a  matter 
of  civic  pride.  No  great  public  function  was  complete  unless 
''Doctor  Nichols"  were  present. 


32  MEMOIR 

When  at  hi^  best  Dr.  Nichols  was  entitled  to  be  called  a 
great  preacher.  There  was  that  fusion  of  intellect  and  emotion, 
logic  and  imagination,  facts  and  vision  possessed  by  only  the 
great  preachers.  At  such  times  he  seemed  to  ''see  face  to 
face"  and  spoke  with  fervor,  with  dramatic  force,  with  flam- 
ing intensity  of  conviction,  with  winning  persuasiveness.  His 
''river  of  speech '^  carried  everything  before  it. 

Year  in  and  year  out  he  made  his  pulpit  a  commanding 
height.  Year  in  and  year  out,  while  time  was  placing  upon  his 
head  the  crown  of  glory,  he  stood  in  his  pulpit.  It  was  well- 
balanced  and  proportioned,  edifying,  satisfying  preaching.  It 
had  the  finish  of  the  written  discourse  and  the  fervor  of 
the  extempore.  It  appealed  to  both  heart  and  intellect.  It 
had  range  and  sympathy.  The  preacher  drew  from  books,  na- 
ture, the  everyday,  and  put  upon  it  all  the  glow  of  imagination 
and  the  interpretation  of  the  spirit. 

He  did  not  preach  a  denominational  gospel.  His  creed  was 
as  broad  as  "I  believe  in  the  Holy  Catholic  Church."  So 
men  of  every  creed,  and  men  of  no  creed  found  in  his  preaching 
health  and  help. 

Because  he  never  slighted  a  small  occasion,  Dr.  Nichols  was 
the  master  of  the  "great"  occasion.  He  not  only  seized,  but 
expanded  his  opportunity.  With  perfect  taste  and  flawless  tact 
he  had  the  artistic  temperament.  He  knew  the  value  of  a 
shading,  an  inflection,  a  gesture,  a  pause.  He  was  master  of 
the  noblest  of  the  arts — the  art  of  public  speaking,  and  he  put 
it  to  a  noble  use. " 

Extracts  from  an  estimate  of  Dr.  Nichols'  preach- 
ing, written  by  a  former  associate  in  the  ministry  of 
the  First  Church; 

* ' His  sermons  were  always  logical  in  the  sequence  of 

thought,  and  convincing  in  argument — satisfying  the  reason- 
faculty  of  the  keenest  mind  among  his  auditors;  yet  the  style 
was  not  argumentative.  The  appeal  was  to  the  whole  nature 
of  the  hearer,  not  to  his  reason  alone.  For  example,  the  writer 
remembers  an  Easter  Day  sermon  which  seemed  absolutely  ir- 


MEMOIR  33 

refutable  in  its  argument  for  the  resurrection  of  Chrigt;  but 
the  final  impression  which  one  carried  away  was  not  the  prov- 
ing of  the  resurrection,  but  the  glory  which  that  event  casts 
over  aU  human  life,  and  the  thrilling  appeal  which  the  fact  of 

immortality  makes  to  a  man 's  best  nature 

But  the  crowning  quality  of  his  preaching  was  the  glowing 
eloquence  of  the  preacher.  It  was  the  eloquence  of  a  great 
mind  and  a  great  heart  set  on  fire  by  great  ethical  and  spiritual 
convictions,  and  giving  expression  to  these  convictions  with  rare 
oratorical  art.  Possessed  of  a  noble  presence,  a  musical  voice, 
and  extraordinary  natural  dramatic  power,  Dr.  Nichols  con- 
secrated these  talents  to  his  high  vocation,  and  used  them  with 
an  effectiveness  which  is  seldom  seen  in  the  modern  pulpit.  *  * 


Sermons 


THE   PRECIOUSNESS   OF   GOD'S  THOUGHTa 

*'How  precious  also  are  thy  thoughts  unto  me,  O  God!" 
Psalm  139 :  17. 

We  have  for  our  morning  meditation,  my  friends, 
the  17th  verse  of  the  139th  Psalm.  *'How  precious 
also  are  thy  thoughts  unto  me,  0  God!"  These  are 
great  words  surely.  Great  and  mysteriously  beautiful 
would  they  be  even  though  they  contained  no  further 
depths  of  meaning  than  they  seem  to  have  upon  the 
surface.  They  seem  to  be  the  words  of  a  man  to 
whom  it  has  become  known  not  only  that  God  is — but 
also  that  God  is  thinking  upon  him.  The  Psalmist  has 
gotten  hold  of  the  fact,  and  is  deeply  impressed  by  it, 
that  his  life,  finite  and  insignificant  as  it  is,  is  somehow 
involved  in  the  thinkings  and  plannings  of  the  Infinite 
and  Eternal.  He  catches  sight  of  God's  thoughts  reach- 
ing down  like  invisible  hands  lifting  him  up  and  away 
into  their  eternal  order  and  placing  him  among  the 
mysteries  of  the  infinite  mind. 

But  I  hinted  at  a  latency,  at  concealments  of  mean- 
ing somewhere  in  the  passage.  They  are  in  the  word 
"thoughts.'*  ''How  precious  are  thy  thoughts  unto 
me,  0  God."  There  are  two  kinds  of  thoughts  one 
may  have  for  a  person,  head  thoughts  and  heart 
thoughts,  thoughts  that  are  perceptions,  observations, 
judgments,  and  thoughts  that  are  cares,  affections, 


Preached  in  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  Binghamton,  1883, 
1891,  1900. 

37 


38  PRECIOUSNESS  OF  GOD'S  THOUGHTS 

sympathies.  You  are  sitting  in  a  railway  carriage  when 
a  stranger  enters  and  takes  the  seat  opposite.  You 
observe  the  expression  of  his  face,  you  notice  his  gen- 
eral appearance  and  perhaps  fall  to  speculating  about 
his  character,  business  and  residence.  Until  some- 
thing else  diverts  your  attention,  he  continues,  it  may 
be,  the  subject  of  your  thoughts. 

But  now  suppose  that  beside  you  in  the  carriage 
is  also  one  with  whom  your  heart  is  closely  bound 
up,  a  dearly  loved  wife  for  instance.  Ever  conscious 
of  her  presence,  anticipating  her  every  want,  reading 
her  mind  in  inquiring  and  answering  looks  of  love, 
how  imlike  your  thoughts  for  her  and  your  thoughts 
for  the  stranger!  Your  thoughts  for  the  stranger 
are  mere  glances  of  the  understanding  which  fall 
upon  their  object  at  a  distance  without  ever  admitting 
him  into  the  real  secret  of  your  presence  and  interest, 
and  soon  dismiss  him  altogether.  But  your  thoughts 
for  the  loved  one  by  your  side  are  outgoings  of  your 
deepest  nature  which,  drawn  to  their  object  by  the 
affinities  of  love,  bring  her  into  the  mind's  inmost 
abode  and  keep  her  there. 

Now  these  two  kinds  of  thoughts,  thoughts  of  the 
head  and  thoughts  of  the  heart,  which  we  find  in  our- 
selves, the  Bible  teaches  us  to  find  in  God.  God  has  a 
twofold  sphere  in  thinking,  a  sphere  within  a  sphere. 
First  there  is  the  sphere  of  His  omniscience.  God  is 
a  clear  sleepless  eye,  never  clouded,  never  dazzled, 
never  escaped.  His  look  is  upon  absolutely  every 
point  in  creation.     From  the  invisible  clod  beneath 


PRECIOUSNESS  OF  GOD'S  THOUGHTS  39 

our  feet  up  to  the  seraph  that  bums  nearest  the 
throne,  all  is  under  His  unbroken  glance.  And  God 
reads  down  into  the  core.  Like  the  watchmaker 's  look 
into  the  open  watch  is  His  glance  into  the  secrets  of 
the  solid  globe,  into  the  secrets  of  the  sea  below  and 
space  above,  into  the  secrets  of  the  soul  and  life  of 
man.  God's  eye,  God's  mind  takes  in  everything  in 
the  wide  universe  and  much  that  was  never  in  it  and 
perhaps  never  will  be  in  it.  God  knows  what  might 
be  as  well  as  what  is,  the  possible  as  well  as  the  actual. 

This  is  the  outer  sphere  of  God's  thoughts,  the 
thoughts  which  His  universal  knowledge  gives  Him. 
It  is  a  prodigious  range.  Our  arts,  sciences,  litera- 
tures, philosophies,  are  mere  explorations  into  the 
fringe  and  border  of  it — so  many  spoonfuls  dipped 
up  from  the  sea  of  His  thoughts.  Our  astronomies, 
geologies,  chemistries,  biologies  are  feeble  guesses  at 
a  few  of  His  ideas  about  creation.  So  are  our  sciences 
of  measurement  and  engineering,  of  His  plans  of  con- 
struction. Our  intellectual  philosophies  and  psy- 
chologies are  shadows  dim  and  grotesque  like  sil- 
houette faces  of  His  thoughts  about  the  human  mind. 
In  no  department  of  knowledge  have  we  more  than 
a  few  letters  of  its  alphabet  by  which  we  spell  out 
some  small  words,  misspell  many  more,  while  the 
great  work  of  its  description  lies  like  a  sealed  book  all 
unread  and  unimagined  before  us. 

There  is  something  wonderful  in  the  thought  which 
James  Martineau  has  expressed,  that  the  hidden 
things  which  we  slowly  discover,  the  new  and  marvell- 


40  PRECIOUSNESS  OF  GOD'S  THOUGHTS 

ous  inventions  which  year  by  year  are  gradually 
brought  to  the  light,  like  the  locomotive,  the  telegraph 
and  the  telephone,  have  all  been  present  to  the  mind 
of  God  from  the  beginning,  ''that  the  secrets  for  which 
ages  pine  and  sigh  lie  clear  within  His  vision  close 
at  hand,  that  in  every  observatory  where  the  patience 
of  many  a  generation  has  grown  gray  there  is  an  Eye 
that  sweeps  beyonds  the  field  of  the  strongest  tele- 
scope, in  every  chamber  of  study  a  Reason  where  no 
darkness  is,  in  every  library  a  living  mind  of  whose 
forethought  all  that  pomp  and  love  of  science  is  but 
the  imperfect  afterthought. ' ' 

But  without  delaying  longer  here,  far  within  this 
outer  circle  of  God's  mind  is  another  deeper  region 
of  thinkings,  of  which  the  most  partial  view  has  for 
every  one  of  us  a  value  and  comfort  greater  than 
the  entire  comprehension,  if  that  were  possible,  of 
all  other  knowledge  whatsoever.  It  is  the  region  of 
God's  will  and  heart.  Love  thinks  as  well  as  intel- 
lect. Love  distinguishes,  recognizes,  remembers,  fore- 
sees. Love  has  its  intuitions,  its  solicitudes,  its  plan- 
nings,  its  provisions.  God's  love  makes  a  complete 
sphere  of  thoughts  of  its  own,  thoughts  which  stand 
out,  or  rather  stand  in  from  the  great  mass  of  His 
universal  knowledge.  God  communes  with  Himself 
about  the  little  child,  about  the  earnest  seeker  after 
light,  about  the  penitent  confessor,  about  the  faithful 
toiler,  about  the  suffering  dying  martyr,  as  He  com- 
munes about  no  other  earthly  objects. 

'*His  eye  seeth  every  precious  thing.    His  percep- 


PRECIOUSNESS  OF  GOD'S  THOUGHTS   41 

tion  singles  out  the  jewels  of  tlie  universe  and  like 
the  telescope  passes  rapidly  over  darkness  and  blank 
spaces  and  pitches  searchingly  on  stars."  He  does 
not  have  to  look  out  and  see  His  especial  objects  on 
the  earth  where  they  visibly  are.  He  looks  within 
and  finds  them  in  His  own  bosom  where  they  really 
are.  And  His  thoughts  for  them  do  not  rise  so  much 
from  what  He  sees  in  them  as  from  what  He  feels  in 
Himself  for  them.  The  thoughts  of  knowledge  are  ac- 
quired, the  thoughts  of  love  are  self  generated.  So 
it  is  not  said  that  God  saw  Noah  shut  up  in  the  Ark, 
but  God  remembered  Noah,  as  if  the  thought  came 
from  within  instead  of  without.  So  God  saw  Moses 
in  the  ark  of  rushes,  Joseph  in  the  prison,  Jeremiah 
in  the  dungeon  and  Daniel  in  the  den  of  lions,  by  look- 
ing into  the  secret  of  His  own  Presence.  And  so  the 
heaven-taught  prayer  of  the  penitent  thief  was  not, 
**Lord,  behold  me,"  but,  ''Lord,  remember  me  when 
thou  comest  in  thy  kingdom."  *'Go  not  out  into  the 
wide  field  of  Thine  omniscience  on  that  great  day, 
but  go  down  into  the  secret  of  Thine  own  loving 
memories  of  me. ' ' 

It  was  the  contents  of  the  inner  sphere  of  the  Di- 
vine Mind  which  the  Psalmist  had  before  him  when 
he  wrote,  "How  precious  are  thy  thoughts  imto  me, 
0  God."  This  is  evident  from  the  peculiar  word  he 
uses.  Had  there  been  such  a  word  the  translation  would 
have  hit  his  meaning  exactly  by  saying,  ''How  pre- 
cious are  thy  carings  for  me,  0  God."  Explain  it  he 
could  not,  deserve  it  he  knew  he  did  not,  but  he  be- 


42  PRECIOUSNESS  OF  GOD'S  THOUGHTS 

lieved  the  divine  assurance  that  he  was  hidden  in  the 
secret  place  of  the  Most  High.  O  how  good  and  beauti- 
ful it  seemed  to  him  to  be  there !  How  strong  and  secure 
and  happy  it  made  him !  It  took  all  fear  and  anxiety 
away  and  made  him  like  one  who  walks  with  a  greater 
and  mightier  than  himself.  He  felt  it  was  greatness 
enough  and  blessedness  enough  just  to  be  in  God's 
mind  and  to  have  God's  thoughts  encircling,  enwrap- 
ping and  supporting  him. 

''How  precious  are  thoughts  unto  me,  0  God!" 
God's  thoughts  are  precious  in  the  first  place  because 
they  are  His  thoughts  and  not  a  man's.  Not  that  I 
think  it  would  be  no  blessing  to  be  in  a  human  mind 
in  the  deep  sense  of  the  Psalmist.  For  my  part  I 
should  hold  it  one  of  the  highest  privileges  of  my  life 
to  have  a  really  great  and  good  man,  one  whom  I 
deeply  revered  and  trusted,  an  Isaiah,  a  St.  John,  a 
Fenelon,  a  Madam  Guyon,  it  seems  to  me  that  it 
would  be  one  of  the  richest  blessings  of  existence  to 
have  such  a  person  draw  near  to  me  each  day  and 
surround  me  with  his  thoughts  and  draw  me  into  the 
secret  of  his  presence  and  communion.  But  now  what 
if  instead  of  the  great  prophet  or  the  beloved  disciple, 
it  be  the  Lord  God  Himself  who  comes  to  me  in  all 
the  incommunicable  beauty  and  unstinted  blessedness 
of  His  attributes  of  glory,  and  puts  His  thoughts 
upon  me  as  the  atmosphere  in  which  I  live  and  move  ? 
"Will  it  not  be  as  if  a  great  thick  door  were  shut 
around  me,  and  all  the  perils  of  life  and  tumults  of 
existence  and  adverse  circumstances  were  outside? 


PRECIOUSNESS  OF  GOD^S  THOUGHTS    43 

I  was  reading  the  other  day  of  a  missionary  in 
Eastern  Africa,  not  a  great  man,  but  a  man  completely 
hidden  in  the  Divine  Presence,  who  visited  a  village 
where  a  ranging  lion  was  the  unresisted  terror  of  all 
the  people.  It  could  not  be  the  will  of  God,  so  the 
missionary  reasoned,  that  this  beast  should  lord  it 
over  His  children.  So  he  went  out  and  pitched  his  tent 
in  the  thick  jungle,  and  when  night  came  he  went  out 
and  lay  down  to  sleep  as  unconcerned  as  if  he  were  in 
his  own  house.  In  the  middle  of  the  night  he  was 
awakened  by  the  sound  of  the  lion's  paw  rending  the 
earth  at  the  open  door  and  his  terrific  roar  shaking 
the  tent.  He  arose,  took  his  gun  and  shot  the  beast, 
and  lay  down  again  as  quietly  as  though  he  were 
doing  some  Christian  work  out  there. 

With  this  same  confidence  he  who  is  hidden  in  God's 
thoughts  walks  among  spiritual  lions.  God's  thoughts 
reach  down  into  the  inner  man.  They  act  on  the  soul, 
the  mind,  the  heart,  and  have  power  to  quell  the 
strongest  passions  that  rage  in  the  human  breast. 
Man  thinks  and  thinks  again,  and  nothing  comes  of 
it.  But  God's  thoughts  are  infinite  dynamos.  God 
once  thought  upon  that  which  was  not,  and  this  glori- 
ous world  with  all  its  coimtless  forms  of  life  and 
beauty  burst  out  of  nothingness  into  being.  God  once 
thought  upon  the  lives  and  sorrows  of  a  fallen  race, 
and  the  Son  of  the  Highest  became  man,  died  on  the 
Cross  and  took  away  the  sins  of  the  world.  God 
thinks  upon  us  and  all  His  living  creatures  every  mo- 
ment, and  we  are  preserved  in  being  and  sustained  in 


44  PBECIOUSNESS  OF  GOD'S  THOUGHTS 

the  use  of  all  our  complex  faculties  and  powers.  One 
day  God  will  think  upon  the  dead,  and  all  who  are 
in  their  graves  will  feel  the  omnipotence  of  His 
thought  and  come  forth,  they  that  have  done  good 
unto  the  resurrection  of  life  and  they  that  have  done 
evil  unto  the  resurrection  of  condemnation.  All  our 
strength,  dear  friends,  strength  of  body  and  strength 
of  mind,  strength  to  think  and  strength  to  speak, 
strength  to  resist  and  strength  to  suffer,  strength  of 
enthusiasm  and  strength  of  patience,  strength  in  public 
and  strength  in  solitude,  all  our  forms  of  strength 
and  beauty  and  happiness  are  simply  God's  thoughts 
upon  us. 

It  seems  to  me  another  element  of  preciousness  in 
God's  thoughts  for  us  is  that  they  are  for  each  one 
of  us  separately  and  personally.  They  are  His 
thoughts  for  you  and  you  and  me.  It  is  not  so  with 
our  minds.  We  lose  hold  of  the  individual  in  trying 
to  take  in  large  numbers.  We  have  to  generalize  and 
to  plan  and  think  and  pray  for  them  in  classes,  as  the 
young,  the  aged,  the  poor,  the  sick,  the  unsaved,  the 
penitent.  But  God  thinks  about  His  millions  of  chil- 
dren as  we  think  about  our  families,  making  each  one 
of  us  the  object  of  a  separate  knowledge  and  a  sepa- 
rate feeling.  In  God's  mind  each  one  of  us  has  a 
place  of  his  own,  each  of  us  is  thought  of  by  him- 
self, each  of  us  is  called  by  name.  God  remembers 
Noah,  calls  Abraham,  speaks  to  Moses,  communes  with 
David.  '*Go  tell  my  disciples  and  Peter,"  said  the 
newly  risen  Jesus.     Spoke  the  Lord  in  a  vision  to 


PEECIOUSNESS  OF  GOD'S  THOUGHTS    45 

Ananias,  '*  Arise  and  go  into  the  street  called  Straight 
and  inquire  in  the  house  of  Judas  for  one  called  Saul 
of  Tarsus  for  behold  he  prayeth."  He  singles  out 
Binghamton  streets  and  names  as  well  as  these  in  His 
thinkings  and  dispatchings.  So  there  is  an  exclusive- 
ness  in  God's  love.  You  have  one  hiding-place  in 
His  presence  and  I  have  another.  There  are  secret 
transactions  between  Him  and  each  one  of  you  that 
I  shall  never  know.  There  is  a  door  in  His  Presence 
no  one  can  enter  but  thyself.  There  is  a  veil  in  His 
thought  which  thou  only  canst  penetrate.  And  for 
this  thou  wert  created,  to  bring  forth  the  hidden  riches 
of  grace  in  thy  secret  place  to  the  glory  of  God  and 
man's  blessing. 

I  feel  this  ought  to  mean  a  great  deal  in  strengthen- 
ing our  personality,  and  enabling  us  to  stand  erect 
and  disregard  people's  criticisms.  My  friends,  some 
of  us  are  pretty  weak.  We  can  hardly  bear  anything 
said  against  our  faith,  our  religion,  our  Saviour,  with- 
out shrinking  under  it.  We  are  sensitive  as  snails 
out  of  their  shells.  Let  anyone  sneer  at  the  Church, 
laugh  at  the  Bible,  toss  off  some  skeptical  smartness 
about  our  piety  and  we  are  stung  and  ready  to  run 
away  outwardly  and  inwardly.  What  we  want  is 
strength  of  personality.  We  want  the  feeling  of 
God's  thoughts  about  us,  lifting  us  up  in  confidence 
and  courage.  Let  the  blessed  truth  that  God  knows 
you  separately,  loves  you  separately,  calls  you  to 
live  a  life  of  separate  fellowship  with  Him  and  sepa- 
rate responsibility  in  the  world,  let  this  fact  take 


46  PRECIOUSNESS  OF  GOD'S  THOUGHTS 

full  possession  of  your  mind  and  heart,  and  your 
oversensitiveness  will  pass  away  and  you  will  care 
no  more  about  people's  criticisms  than  about  the 
winds  that  blow. 

Passing  now  from  God's  thoughts  as  they  exist  in 
His  mind,  I  should  like  to  look  at  some  of  the  forms 
of  expression  which  they  take  in  coming  to  us.  All 
around  us  are  these  expressions.  The  new-bom  light 
streaming  up  from  the  reddening  East,  the  golden 
haze  of  autumn  noonday,  the  fair  valleys  sleeping  in 
the  deepening  shadows  of  the  afternoon,  the  fiery 
splendors  of  the  setting  sun  and  the  starry  midnight 
skies  are  God's  thoughts  of  beauty  and  glory.  The 
immovable  hills,  lofty  mountains,  rocky  promontories 
and  round  ocean  are  His  thoughts  of  grandeur  and 
impregnable  strength.  The  sun,  the  falling  rain,  and 
waving  harvests  are  His  thoughts  of  goodness  and  rich 
beneficence.  The  tender  leaf,  the  scented  blossom,  the 
painted  butterfly,  the  crystalline  snowflake  and  ex- 
quisite frost  flowers  are  His  thoughts  of  minute  at- 
tention and  delicate  skill. 

Then  our  occupations,  our  homes,  our  social  rela- 
tionships, our  studies  and  books,  with  all  that  gladdens 
and  inspires  our  lives,  what  are  they  but  expressions 
of  God's  thoughts  for  us?  Boatmen  gliding  down 
the  stream  in  the  deepening  twilight  and  leaning  over 
the  sides  of  their  boat  may  seem  to  see  underneath 
them  an  expanse  of  tenderest  blue  studded  with 
sparkling  gems,  and  river  banks  overhung  with  trees 
clothed  like  those  St.  John  saw,  with  leaves  and  fruits 


PRECIOUSNESS  OF  GOD'S  THOUGHTS    47 

of  more  than  earthly  quality ;  seem  to  see  this  beneath 
them,  but  the  realities  of  all  these  reflected  glories 
are  above  them.  And  so,  my  friends,  above  us  are 
the  truth  and  purity,  the  trust  and  love  and  devotion 
which  we  seem  to  see  in  the  hearts  which  bear  us  up 
by  their  strength  and  sympathy.  These  human  sup- 
ports and  comforts,  these  dear  faces  which  greet  us 
after  absence  and  lend  a  sunlight  to  our  dreams,  are 
nothing  more  or  less  than  reflections  of  God's  thoughts 
for  us. 

"We  begin  with  God's  thoughts  in  nature,  where 
many  an  one,  like  Mungo  Park  bending  over  the 
forget-me-not  in  the  African  desert,  has  strangely 
felt  the  invisible  Presence  about  him.  But  I  have 
something  more  to  tell  you.  In  this  blessed  Book 
open  to  every  one  of  us  God  has  poured  His  thoughts 
and  carings  for  you  and  me  into  human  speech. 
Greater  wonder  still,  He  has  poured  His  thinking 
and  caring  mind  into  human  flesh.  God  has  uttered 
Himself.  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Word,  the  expression 
of  the  Godhead.  The  Cross  is  the  pierced  Heart  of 
Heaven.  All  the  fulness  of  God's  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings for  us  are  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  And  He  is 
ours  to  draw  near  to  and  to  confide  in,  ours  to  ac- 
knowledge as  our  own  and  to  be  confessed  as  His  own, 
ours  to  cast  our  sins  upon  Him  and  to  put  on  His 
righteousness,  ours  to  belong  to  Him  and  to  follow 
after  Him,  ours  to  become  like  Him  and  to  be  with 
Him  where  He  is.  And  so  by  thinking  on  us  God  has 
not  only  lifted  us  up  into  His  bosom  but  He  has  Him- 


48  PEECIOUSNESS  OF  GOD'S  THOUGHTS 

self  come  down  into  our  bosom,  He  in  us  and  we  in 
Him,  so  to  exist  ever  more. 

Think  of  it,  brethren,  realize  it.  Having  received 
Christ  into  your  hearts,  you  are  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Father.  You  are  among  the  deep  things  of  God. 
Omniscience,  almightiness,  immensity,  eternity,  stand 
around  you  like  the  mountains  around  about  Jerusa- 
lem. Truth  and  love  and  righteousness  cover  you. 
Under  the  shelter  of  these  greatnesses  you  are  in  His 
mind  like  vessels  ridiag  at  anchor  in  a  cliff -enclosed 
harbor.  What  matters  that  you  have  come  in  wrecks 
split  upon  fatal  rocks  and  with  sails  torn  by  fierce 
winds?  Here  is  caring  for  the  most  wounded  and 
wasted  life,  to  grow  into  strength  and  beauty  again. 
Will  you  not  be  glad  and  gratefully  sing  with  a 
Hindoo  Christian  poetess, 

**In  the  secret  of  His  Presence,  how  my  soul  delight*  to  hide! 
Ah,  how  hallowed  are  the  lessons  that  I  learn  at  Jesus* 
side!''f 

Here  I  draw  to  a  close.  Can  we  not,  my  friends, 
rise  up  from  our  sittings  and  go  forth  from  the  sanctu- 
ary this  morning  with  new  peace  on  our  faces  and 
new  freedom  in  our  hearts  from  the  world's  prizes 
and  eagerly  coveted  plaudits?  Does  it  not  seem 
strangely  unworthy  of  those  upon  whom  are  fastened 
the  look  and  thought  of  Him  who  is  above  all,  to 
be  seeking  their  good  in  the  look  and  thought  of  others 
no  better  than  themselves,  powerless  either  to  bless 
or  curse?  To  be  eager  for  places  of  distinction,  to 
covet  this  or  that  mode  of  life,  to  pine  for  admission 


PRECIOUSNESS  OF  GOD'S  THOUGHTS    49 

into  circles  of  fashion,  to  have  the  heart  set  upon 
splendid  settlements  and  splendid  establishments,  to 
be  self-conscious  and  self-complacent,  proud  and  deli- 
cate and  querulous,  having  the  eyes  toward  the  world 
as  the  eyes  of  a  maid  are  toward  her  mistress,  brethren, 
are  these  things  for  God's  children?  And  in  the  end 
when  flesh  and  heart  fail,  will  it  be  anything  to  the 
soul  that  she  has  all  these,  but  has  His  loving  thought 
upon  her  no  more ?  "I  have  lived  for  the  world  and 
I  have  lost  it,"  were  the  twice  repeated  words  of  a 
dying  man.  It  must  be  the  awful  thought  at  the  end 
of  everyone  who  lives  for  the  world.  Only  one  thing 
can  a  man  keep  forever — God,  God  and  his  own  soul. 
No,  I  am  in  error — ^he  can  if  he  will  keep  sin  and  the 
absence  of  God  forever. 

But  again  there  is  something  here  for  those  who 
are  still  strangers  to  the  reconciled  love  of  God.  I 
look  over  this  congregation  and  see  one  and  another 
whom  I  love  and  who  I  feel  are  in  the  darkness;  in 
doubt,  in  dispeace,  homeless  and  viewless  they  are. 
They  are  trying  to  cheer  themselves  with  such  ob- 
jects as  are  about  them,  but  still  their  heart  is  lonely, 
still  their  feet  are  slipping,  still  death  is  drawing 
nigh.  Dear  souls,  I  long  to  see  you  shut  up  in  the 
secret  of  his  Presence.  I  long  to  have  his  loving 
thoughts  around  you  now  and  in  eternity.  I  long  to 
have  you  hidden  with  Christ  and  His  holy  Church  in 
God.  So  you  shall  be  if  you  will  now  take  up  the 
gift  which  God  has  laid  at  your  feet,  the  gift  of  His 
own  dear  Son  whom  He  has  given  to  you  to  be  your 


50  PEECIOUSNESS  OF  GOD'S  THOUGHTS 

pardon,  your  purity,  your  peace,  your  pledge  of 
Heaven  and  assurance  of  everlasting  life.  Take  Him 
— He  has  waited  long  for  you — ^take  Him  and  let  Him 
who  died  for  you  be  your  hiding  place,  and  lift  you 
up  from  the  gates  of  hell  into  the  light  of  your 
Father's  smile  and  the  security  of  your  Father's 
thoughts. 

Once  more,  there  is  something  here  also  for  those 
who  have  to  carry  incommunicable  burdens,  who  have 
bodily  sufferings  for  which  sympathy  may  not  be 
asked,  or  who  have  perplexities  of  mind  which  they 
cannot  express  to  themselves,  much  less  to  others,  or 
who  are  filled  with  forebodings  unbreathed  because 
their  objects  are  sacred  and  cannot  be  exposed,  or 
who  are  solitary  because  their  objects  are  taken  away 
and  no  one  is  left  to  understand,  or  who  cherish 
lonely  heights  of  aspiration  with  none  to  bear  them 
company,  or  who  enter  upon  paths  of  duty  misunder- 
stood and  misinterpreted  by  dearest  friends.  Ye  who 
sit  solitary  in  the  sanctuary,  is  it  nothing  that  God 
cares  for  you  ?  Is  it  nothing  that  your  loneliness  gives 
you  a  deeper  place  in  His  mind  and  that  through  it 
His  thoughts  are  more  often  upon  you?  Go  and  un- 
burden your  heart  to  Him.  You  cannot  tell  your 
troubles  to  man  who  does  not  know  them,  but  you 
can  tell  them  to  Him  who  knows  them  already  and 
weighed  them  before  they  came.  Surely  this  is  a 
verse  for  you  to  keep  much  about  your  heart  until 
the  day  break  and  the  lost  are  given  back.  *'How 
precious  are  thy  thoughts  unto  me,  0  God!'' 


THE  MORNING  STAR. 

"And  he  that  overcometh,  and  keepeth  my  works  unto  the 

end, I  will  give  him  the  morning  star. ' '     Eevelation  2  : 

26,  28. 

Rising  at  an  early  hour  one  morning  some  time 
ago  and  looking  out  at  the  window  I  saw  a  beautiful 
sight.  The  sky  was  without  a  trace  of  cloud,  a  body 
of  perfect  clearness  delicately  tinged  with  orange  and 
rose  color.  The  dawn  was  steadily  brightening  into 
day  and  all  things  seemed  new,  primal,  promiseful. 
The  stars  had  already  paled  in  the  light  of  the  near 
approach  of  the  effulgent  king.  Only  the  moon,  now 
in  its  diminishing  quarter,  glistened  like  a  golden 
crescent  high  upon  the  breast  of  the  morning  sky, 
while  a  space  above,  flaming  in  the  regal  forehead  of 
the  dawn,  shone  the  morning  star.  The  glory  of  that 
solitary  high-hanging  lamp  of  heaven  fixed  my  eyes 
and  streamed  down  into  my  heart.  I  remembered  the 
supernatural  fascination  which  the  heavenly  bodies 
once  exerted  over  men  and  made  them  their  wor- 
shippers. I  remembered  the  Saviour's  word,  ^'I  am 
the  bright  and  morning  star,"  and  His  mystic  prom- 
ise, ' '  he  that  overcometh I  will  give  him  the 

morning  star.'' 

You  all  know  the  significance  of  the  Morning  Star. 
It  is  the  forerunner.    It  is  the  beautiful  harbinger  of 


Preached  in  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  Binghamton,  1899. 

51 


52  THE  MORNING  STAR 

approaching  day.  It  is  the  King's  herald,  bright  with 
the  splendor  and  prediction  of  the  presence  of  the 
King  himself.  Just  as  the  rainbow  declares  the  sov- 
ereignty of  the  sunshine  over  the  clouds,  just  as  the 
first  ripe  fruits  of  autumn  are  an  earnest  of  the  golden 
harvest  to  come,  so  the  Morning  Star  is  the  pledge 
of  the  victory  of  light  over  darkness  and  the  bright 
precursor  of  the  Brightness  itself.  Milton  describes 
it  as 

**  Fairest  of  stars,  last  in  the  train  of  night, 
If  better  thou  belong 'st  not  to  the  dawn, 
Sure  pledge  of  day,  that  crown  'st  the  smiling  morn 
With  thy  bright  circlet." 

I  think  we  have  all  seen  persons  who  gave  us  the 
impression  of  having  received  the  Morning  Star.  I 
have  in  mind  now  a  man  whose  forehead  glows  as  it 
were  with  a  strange  light.  He  is  never  cast  down  or 
discouraged.  He  is  not  anxious  nor  disquieted  as 
other  men.  He  carries  about  him  an  assurance  of  suc- 
cess, an  anticipation  of  victory.  No  darkness  or  con- 
fusion of  the  hour  disheartens  or  disturbs  him.  His 
very  face  like  a  high  mountain  peak  seems  to  catch 
the  reflection  of  a  far-off  dawn. 

My  friends,  have  you  not  sometime  met  a  man  or 
woman  who  seemed  to  possess  a  luminousness  of 
spirit  which  others  had  not,  which  you  could  not  pre- 
cisely define  or  describe,  but  which  had  the  effect  of 
clothing  them  with  wonderful  assurance  and  making 
them  strangely  serene,  self-poised,  confident  of  the 
future?    Have  you  not  known  persons  who  acted  as 


THE  MORNING  STAR  53 

if  they  had  within  them  a  hidden  fountain  of  light 
which  shed  its  beams  around  them  continually?  In 
this  account  given  of  a  great  man  over  his  grave 
I  think  you  will  all  recognize  a  possessor  of  the  Morn- 
ing Star.  ' '  Above  the  changing  fortunes  of  the  cause 
of  which  he  was  the  leader,  he  moved  as  undisturbed 
as  the  stars  in  their  orbits.  He  was  never  elated  by 
success,  never  disheartened  by  temporary  disaster  and 
failure.    01  ultimate  success  he  was  always  certain." 

Biographers  of  Abraham  Lincoln  tell  us  of  a  mys- 
teiy  in  the  man  which  no  one  could  explain — a  kind 
of  higher  vision  which  in  the  darkest  hours  of  the  civil 
war  made  him  act  as  if  he  saw  a  light  others  could 
not  see,  and  had  bread  to  eat  which  others  knew 
not  of.  Was  it  not  the  possession  of  the  Morning  Star 
which  enabled  the  great  President  to  hold  up  his  head 
in  the  dark  day?  ''And  he  that  overcometh,  and 
keepeth  my  works  unto  the  end,  to  him  will  I  give 

power  over  the  nations and  I  will  give  him  the 

morning  star.''  The  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  King 
of  heaven,  who  is  always  giving  something  of  Himself 
to  those  who  love  and  obey  Him,  and  who  names  Him- 
self the  Bright  and  Morning  Star,  here  promises  to 
bestow  some  of  His  light-possessing  power  and  radi- 
ancy upon  His  faithful  and  persevering  followers. 
"Follow  on,"  He  says  to  those  who  are  resisting  sin 
and  striving  earnestly  to  conform  themselves  in  every- 
thing to  His  will  and  example,  ''follow  on  and  faint 
not,  and  I  will  give  you  some  of  My  light  in  which 
you  shall  see  light  and  possess  light  and  be  yourselves 


54  THE  MORNING  STAR 

radiant  forerunners  of  the  everlasting  dawn.  I  will 
give  you  the  Morning  Star." 

My  friends,  I  do  not  bring  this  wonderful  promise 
to  you  this  morning  because  I  seem  to  comprehend 
all  its  meaning  and  think  I  can  lead  you  to  the  end 
of  it.  I  seem  to  myself  like  one  standing  at  the 
entrance  of  a  glorious  pathway,  who  sees  but  a  few 
steps  into  it,  but  who  wishes  to  advance  far  as  he  sees 
that  he  may  see  more  and  advance  farther.  The  gift 
of  the  Morning  Star  seems  to  me  first  of  all  a  gift  of 
knowledge.  Not  that  knowledge  which  consists  in  the 
mere  accumulation  of  facts  or  the  study  of  phe- 
nomena. How  much  knowledge  there  is  that  does  not 
enlighten  its  possessor  or  any  one  else!  How  many 
students,  accurate  laborious  painstaking  students, 
spend  their  strength  upon  the  surfaces  of  things  with- 
out ever  penetrating  their  inner  essential  radiancy, 
and  are  really  more  like  meadow  moles  than  like  morn- 
ing stars ! 

To  know  a  thing  you  must  not  only  see  the  thing 
itself,  but  you  must  see  it  in  the  light  of  the  larger 
truth  that  surrounds  it  and  interprets  it.  You  are 
standing  before  a  great  painting.  You  admire  the 
gracefulness  of  the  figures,  the  naturalness  of  their 
attitudes,  the  depth  and  richness  of  the  coloring,  and 
go  away  without  knowing  anything  of  the  author,  the 
history  or  the  purpose  of  the  picture.  Some  time  after 
you  meet  the  artist  and  become  intimately  acquainted 
with  him.  One  day  he  lets  you  into  the  knowledge  of 
his  thought  and  purpose  in  painting  that  picture. 


THE  MORNING  STAR  55 

What  a  revelation !  What  a  different  thing  that  pic- 
ture seems  now !  You  see  it  as  you  never  saw  it  be- 
fore. You  see  it  in  the  light  of  its  creator  and  its 
creator's  purpose.  You  observe  a  woman  going  from 
one  great  man's  house  to  another's  interceding  for 
someone  or  something  you  know  not  what.  A  most 
uninteresting  sight !  How  dull  and  dreary  seems  her 
lot !  But  you  are  told  that  that  woman  is  the  wife  of 
a  man  who  after  being  tried  and  condemned  and  de- 
graded and  imprisoned  for  a  crime  he  never  com- 
mitted has  been  tried  and  condemned  a  second  time, 
and  that  the  devoted  woman  is  expending  every 
energy  she  possesses  to  secure  his  pardon.  And  now 
looking  at  her  in  the  light  of  her  intense  inextinguish- 
able love  for  her  martyr  husband,  how  beautiful  the 
woman  appears !  Her  face  glows  like  a  star.  Every 
detail  of  her  effort  and  experience  flashes  a  radiance 
from  it. 

My  friends,  there  is  a  light  which  surrounds  all 
things,  puts  them  in  their  own  true  light  and  inter- 
prets them.  It  is  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  God. 
"In  thy  light,"  says  the  Psalmist,  "we  see  light." 
True,  profoundly  true.  He  who  stands  in  the  light  of 
God  sees  all  things,  the  events  of  the  world  around, 
the  events  of  his  own  inner  experience  also,  in  their 
own  deeper  light.  If  you  will  think  how  Jesus  saw 
things  here  on  earth  you  will  understand  exactly  what 
I  mean.  He  saw  aU  things  in  the  light  of  His  Father, 
saw  the  heavens  in  the  light  of  His  Father's  creating 
thought,  saw  the  lilies  of  the  field  in  the  light  of  His 


56  THE  MORNING  STAR 

Father's  loving  care  for  the  least  of  His  creatures,  saw 
the  world  of  sinning  men  in  the  light  of  His  Father's 
pity  and  desire,  saw  His  own  life,  death  too,  in  the 
light  of  His  Father's  will  and  wish.  All  this  dark 
world  Jesus  saw  as  a  Son  in  His  Father's  House. 
He  was  thus  the  Bright  and  Morning  Star  to  the  other 
sons  and  thus  He  gives  the  Morning  Star  to  those 
who  love  and  obey  Him. 

Secondly,  the  Morning  Star  is  a  gift  of  power  and 
leadership.  As  a  man  sees  so  is  he.  His  vision  is  the 
measure  of  his  power.  He  who  sees  only  what  is  near 
by  must  always  be  weak,  timid,  anxious.  He  whose 
vision  reaches  on  and  takes  in  what  is  far  off  is  strong 
and  moves  freely  and  powerfully.  "What  a  difference 
between  a  man  who  is  always  looking  around  him 
and  studying  the  immediate  consequences  of  his  words 
and  actions  in  the  faces  of  his  fellow  men,  and  a  man 
who  is  always  looking  up  and  acting  in  the  light  of 
the  face  of  eternal  truth  and  righteousness!  One 
creeps  on  the  ground  and  grovels  in  the  fear  of  man, 
which  is  always  before  his  eyes;  the  other  stands  up 
confidently,  moves  forward  with  the  whole  force  of 
his  nature  and  sees  already  the  light  of  ultimate  vic- 
tory in  his  course.  This  is  the  very  secret  of  the 
world's  great  leaders,  in  the  Bible  and  out  of  it. 
Moses,  David,  Paul,  Luther,  Knox,  Cromwell,  Wash- 
ington, Garibaldi,  General  Gordon,  you  have  only  to 
glance  at  these  commanding  spirits  to  recognize  the 
prevision  of  victory  on  their  foreheads.    They  antici- 


THE  MORNING  STAR  57 

pated  the  triumph  of  their  cause.     They  were  con- 
querors while  they  fought. 

''They  viewed  the  triumph  from  afar, 
They  seized  it  with  their  eye.'' 

They  had  the  Morning  Star. 

It  was  this  which  also  drew  men  to  them  and  gave 
them  their  sovereignty  over  others.  Men  believed 
them  and  followed  them  whithersoever  they  led  be- 
cause they  felt  that  their  eyes  were  on  high  and  that 
they  knew  whither  they  were  going.  We  need  such 
leaders  now.  We  need  in  the  state  men  who  look  at 
questions  of  public  concern  in  the  light  not  of  current 
opinion  and  the  passing  day,  but  of  eternal  issues. 
We  need  in  the  Church  men  whose  minds  are  lifted 
up  into  the  sweep  of  God's  omnipotent  purposes,  men 
with  spiritual  vision  so  clarified  and  intensified  that 
like  St.  Stephen  they  pierce  through  the  confusions 
of  the  hour  far  into  the  heavens  and  see  Jesus  crowned 
with  glory  and  power.  0,  how  strong,  how  uncon- 
querable it  makes  even  the  youngest  and  humblest 
soul  to  receive  the  Morning  Star!  The  spirit  of  the 
heavenly  vision  gives  birth  to  power,  to  confidence,  to 
calmness. 

Thirdly  the  Morning  Star  is  a  gift  of  inspiration 
in  the  work  of  life.  We  have  read  of  men  who  have 
wrought  their  common  daily  tasks  in  the  light  of 
God's  face  and  for  the  glory  of  God's  name.  We 
have  read  of  stone  masons  whose  chisels  sang  and 
whose  hammers  rang  the  praises  of  God  as  truly  as 


58  THE  MORNING  STAR 

the  choirs  of  heaven.  We  have  read  of  house  servants 
who  have  swept  rooms,  scoured  pots  and  kettles  and 
done  all  drudgery,  as  it  is  called,  with  holy  fervor  as 
a  service  to  God  and  their  Saviour.  My  friends,  can 
life's  work  in  this  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  be 
done  divinely  still?  Is  it  possible  for  laboring  men 
to  be  kings  and  priests  unto  God  and  for  us  all  to  do 
this  work  of  life  not  chiefly  to  men  but  to  Him  who  sits 
there  on  the  throne  ?  Certainly  it  is  possible.  It  needs 
only  the  gift  of  the  Morning  Star,  the  vision  of  the 
larger  light  of  God  upon  it,  to  make  all  honest  labor 
divine  and  lift  the  whole  work  of  life  into  a  sacred 
liturgy. 

But  this  is  not  what  I  set  out  to  say.  I  was  about 
to  speak  of  the  way  in  which  the  possessor  of  the 
Morning  Star  is  inspired  to  Christian  work.  He  sees 
not  only  God,  but  man  in  the  light  of  God.  He  walks 
the  crowded  streets,  and  the  men  and  women  he  meets 
appear  to  him  not  as  they  actually  are,  subject  of 
ambitions  and  appetites,  but  as  they  are  ideally  in  the 
redeeming  thought  and  desire  of  God.  He  recog- 
nizes the  possible  angel  in  every  face  he  sees,  the 
hidden  image  of  God  in  every  breast.  As  his  mind 
expands  to  the  conception  of  the  value  of  men's  souls 
so  his  heart  kindles  with  desire  for  them.  He  looks 
upon  his  congregation,  upon  his  Sunday-school  class, 
upon  his  sons  and  daughters,  upon  his  friends  and 
neighbors,  not  as  so  many  persons  whom  he  knows 
all  about,  but  as  immortal  spirits  whose  life  passes 
human  comprehension,  who  are  known  only  to  Him 


THE  MORNING  STAR  59 

who  created  them  and  died  for  them.  Do  you  wonder 
that  a  great  enthusiasm  for  souls  springs  up  within 
him  and  becomes  the  over-mastering  motive  and  de- 
sire of  his  life  ? 

Again,  the  Morning  Star  is  a  gift  of  consolation. 
My  friends,  life  is  full  of  trial,  full  of  darkness. 
Mornings  bright  with  promise  are  turned  into  noon- 
days and  afternoons  of  clouds  and  storm.  In  the  lives 
of  all  of  us  come  moments  when  only  one  Voice  can 
speak  to  us,  and  not  even  that  is  always  heard  at  first. 
Moments  in  the  experience  of  long-continued  pain  and 
physical  agony,  moments  of  depression  in  the  cease- 
less struggle  with  indwelling  sin,  moments  of  discour- 
agement over  the  lost  accumulations  of  years,  moments 
of  unavailing  regret  over  real  or  imagined  mistakes, 
moments  in  the  waking  hours  of  the  lonely  night,  in 
the  deepening  shadows  of  the  dark  valley  on  the  sick- 
bed, in  the  breaking  heart-chords  of  love's  last  embrace 
of  love,  in  the  sad  return  from  the  freshly  covered 
grave  to  the  empty  home.  "  'I  will  give  him  the 
morning  star.'  He  shall  look  down  and  roam  in  the 
dark  narrow  circle  of  his  own  thoughts  and  feelings 
no  more.  He  shall  lift  his  eyes  on  high  and  see  his 
sorrow  in  the  larger  light  of  My  great  and  gracious 
purpose  in  it.  He  shall  see  that  his  way  was  not 
hidden  for  one  moment  from  My  eyes  or  passed  over 
by  My  care.  He  shall  feel  what  was  dark  to  him  is 
all  light  to  Me  and  what  is  bitter  now  will  be  sweet 
by  and  by.  He  shall  know  Me  as  only  those  who  have 
suffered  can  know  Me,  in  My  chastening,  purifying 


60  THE  MORNING  STAR 

love,  and  he  shall  find  out  of  his  own  blessed  experi- 
ence that  all  things  do  indeed  work  together  for  the 
good,  the  eternal  good  of  them  that  love  God." 

Once  more,  the  Morning  Star  is  the  gift  of  the  hope 
of  a  blessed  immortality.  If  Christ  has  given  us  the 
star  that  leads  up  to  the  morning  He  will  not  with- 
hold the  daybreak  itself.  Having  given  the  pledge 
He  will  bring  in  the  fulfillment.  He  who  cannot  de- 
ceive and  cannot  do  anything  imperfectly  will  never 
leave  those  to  whom  He  has  given  the  Morning  Star 
in  darkness  or  suffer  His  holy  ones  to  see  corruption. 
This  is  the  old  argument  for  immortality  in  a  new 
form.  The  old  argument  was,  immortality  exists  as 
an  idea,  an  instinct  in  every  man's  mind;  therefore 
immortality  must  be  a  fact.  The  shadow  proves  the 
substance.  The  thirst  proves  the  fountain.  **We 
wish  for  immortality,"  says  Frederic  Robertson,  *'the 
thought  of  annihilation  is  horrible.  The  wish  is  a 
kind  of  argument.  It  is  not  likely  that  God  would 
have  given  all  men  such  a  feeling  if  He  had  not  meant 
to  gratify  it. ' ' 

Addison  puts  the  same  argument  upon  the  lips  of 

Roman  Cato — 

''Plato,  thou  reasonest  well, 
Else  whence  this  pleasing  hope,  this  fond  desire. 
This  longing  after  immortality? 
Or  whence  this  secret  dread  and  inward  horror 
Of  falling  into  naught?     Why  shrinks  the  soul 
Back  on  herself  and  startles  at  destruction? 
^Tis  the  divinity  that  stirs  within  us. 
^Tis  heaven  itself  that  points  out  an  hereafter 
And  intimates  eternity  to  man.'' 


THE  MORNING  STAR  61 

So  the  argument  has  stood.    This  is  the  fact  now 
added  to  it.    Men  and  women  who  receive  Jesus  Christ 
into  their  hearts  realize  at  the  same  time  an  assurance 
of  immortality,  and  that  a  joyous  blessed  immortality 
of  communion  with  Him,  which  they  never  felt  be- 
fore    Brethren,  to  me  this  is  the  deepest,  strongest, 
most  satisfying  proof  of  a  blessed  life  to  come,  the  fact 
that  in  direct  proportion  as  we  receive  the  Lord  Jesus 
into  our  thoughts  and  lives  and  become  invested  with 
Him  in  will  and  purpose,  in  that  same  proportion 
there  springs  up  within  our  souls  the  belief  and  confi- 
dence that  we  shall  rise  with  Christ  and  be  undying 
partakers  of  His  heavenly  life  and  joy.    I  know  that 
you  are  so  taken  up  with  your  cares  and  toils  that 
you  do  not  often  dwell  upon  the  prospect  of  a  heaven 
with  communion  with  God.    And  yet  I  am  sure  there 
are  moments  when  the  thought  passes  through  the 
hearts  of  some  of  you  like  a  song  in  the  nigh  ,- 
the  thought  of  seeing  all  things  clear,  the  thought  of 
being  wholly  and  forever  free  from  the  consciousness 
of  sin,  the  thought  of  walking  about  pure,  radiant, 
kingly  as  Christ  Himself,  the  thought  of  having  pow- 
ers set  free  and  employments  given  you  greater  than 
you  have  ever  engaged  in  here,  the  thought  of  tastmg 
joys  with  one  another,  with  the  angels,  with  those 
you  have  loved  and  lost  a  while,  with  the  Master  Him- 
self, beyond  all  thought  we  can  now  conceive. 

One  word  more  and  I  pause.    The  Mormng  Star  is 
not  given  to  everybody.    It  is  given  to  a  certain  dis- 


62  THE  MORNING  STAR 

tinct  type  of  character.    *'  'He  that  overcometli,  and 

keepeth  my  works  unto  the  end I  will  give  him 

the  morning  star.'  He  whose  life  is  a  struggle 
towards  what  is  spiritual  and  divine,  a  struggle  often 
baffled  but  never  given  up,  never  ended,  a  struggle 
continued  earnestly,  maintained  unflinchingly,  unfal- 
teringly, to  life's  end — ^to  him  I  will  give  the  Morn- 
ing Star." 

Brethren,  we  must  hold  fast.  It  is  not  enough  to 
begin  well.  Continuance  is  the  test  of  character. 
Fidelity  is  the  sum  of  all  duties.  Steadfastness  is  the 
greatest  of  all  virtues.  Let  me  read  you  what  one 
has  written  whose  battle  is  now  over,  who  sings  the 
victor's  song:  ''When  we  have  to  go  on  day  by  day 
contending  with  a  passionate  or  sluggish  nature, 
limiting  the  one,  enkindling  the  other,  meeting  small 
temptations  every  hour  so  that  watchfulness  must 
never  be  relaxed,  when  no  sooner  is  one  wrong  deed 
laid  in  the  grave  than  another  rises  up  so  that  the 
sword  of  life  is  never  in  the  scabbard,  when  we  know 
this  will  go  on  for  years,  till  death  comes — ^then  not 
to  give  way  to  angry  weariness,  not  to  brood  over  the 
battle,  but  to  take  it  frankly  as  it  comes  as  part  of  the 
day's  work,  to  make  of  higher  endeavor  an  inward 
light  which  makes  the  path  before  us  always  bright, 
to  conquer  the  chill  of  custom  and  the  weight  of  com- 
monplace and  be  inspired  always  by  an  inward 
thought ;  to  pour  into  life  such  love  of  God  and  man 
that  aU  things  will  grow  beautiful  and  worthy  to  be 


THE  MORNING  STAR  63 

done,  and  look  forward  persevering  to  the  last,  'from 
well  to  better  daily  self-surpast, '  this  is  to  be  faithful 
unto  death,  and  for  these  things  there  is  the  crown  of 
life.'' 


UNUSED   SPICES. 

'  *  Now  upon  the  first  day  of  the  week,  very  early  in  the  morn- 
ing, they  came  unto  the  sepulchre,  bringing  the  spices  which 
they  had  prepared."    St.  Luke  24:  1. 

I  once  saw  in  the  corner  of  a  newspaper  a  poet's 
interpretation  of  this  verse  which  opened  it  to  my 
mind  as  no  commentary  had  ever  done.  I  would  like 
to  read  it  as  being  at  once  a  revealing  insight  into  the 
text  and  a  fitting  introduction  to  what  I  have  to  say 
upon  it. 

''What  said  the  women  as  they  bore 
Their  fragrant  gifts  away, 
The  spices  which  they  did  not  need, 
That  Eesurrection  Day? 

Did  Mary  say  within  her  heart, 

'  Our  work  hath  been  in  vain ; ' 
Or  counting  o'er  the  spices  brought. 

Of  so  much  waste  complain? 

Not  so,  for  though  the  risen  Lord  i ' 

Their  offering  did  not  need,  -f 

Not  unrewarded  was  the  love 
That  planned  the  reverent  deed. 


Preached  in  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  Binghamton,  1893, 
1897;  and  also  in  these  churches:  Brick  Presbyterian,  Rochester; 
Binghamton  State  Hospital  for  the  Insane,  1893;  Presbyterian, 
Dunmore,  Pa.,  1893;  Central  Presbyterian,  Rochester,  1893;  First 
Presbyterian,  Buffalo,  1893;  New  York  Avenue  Presbyterian, 
Washington,  D.  C,  1893;  First  Presbyterian,  Cortland,  N.  Y.,  1897; 
Second  Presbyterian,  Scranton,  1897;  Immanuel  Presbyterian,  Mil- 
waukee, 1897;  Central  Presbyterian,  Denver,  1898;  Presbyterian 
Mission,  Beirut,  Syria,  1899;  Presbyterian,  Gilbertsville,  N.  Y., 
1900;  First  Presbyterian,  Englewood,  N.  J.,  1902;  First  Presby- 
terian, Wilkes-Barre,  1902;  North  Presbyterian,  Binghamton,  1903; 
West  Presbyterian,  Binghamton,  1904. 

64 


UNUSED  SPICES  65 

For  thougli  unused  their  fragrant  store, 

Yet  well  might  they  rejoice, 
Since  they  the  first  who  saw  the  Lord, 

The  first  who  heard  His  voice. 

Sweet  story,  hast  thou  not  some  truth 

For  my  impatient  heart. 
Some  lesson  that  shall  stay  with  me 

Its  comfort  to  impart?'' 

I  think  it  has  a  lesson,  and  a  very  instructive  lesson, 
to  teach  us  all.  It  seems  to  me  this  little  incident 
contains  a  deep  illuminating  truth,  a  truth  which 
throws  light  upon  some  of  life 's  dark  places,  and  which 
must  shine  into  many  hearts  in  this  congregation 
with  consoling  power. 

My  subject  is  the  Unused  Spices  of  life.  By  un- 
used spices  I  mean  the  unutilized  gifts  and  graces,  the 
unapplied  faculties  and  powers,  the  unrealized  ideals 
and  aspirations  of  human  souls.  I  mean  those  offer- 
ings of  love  and  service  and  devotion  which  seem  to 
be  declined,  those  rich  and  fragrant  stores  of  know- 
ledge and  learning,  of  endowment  and  acquisition,  of 
labor  and  consecration,  which  have  been  gathered  and 
prepared  with  the  thought  of  honoring  the  Lord's 
body,  and  when  the  time  should  come  to  use  them 
the  opportunity  is  not  given.  I  have  in  mind  now  one 
whose  childhood  was  exceedingly  interesting  and  at- 
tractive and  whose  youth  was  an  unfolding  of  cor- 
responding promise.  "Wordsworth's  line,  ^'Heaven 
lies  about  in  our  infancy,"  had  living  illustration  in 
the  beautiful  opening  of  her  life.     She  seemed  to  be 


66  UNUSED  SPICES 

modelled  of  finer  clay.  An  exquisitely  tempered  spirit 
was  she,  adjusted  to  all  the  graces,  attuned  to  all  the 
harmonies  of  nature  and  art,  of  truth  and  beauty. 
Expression,  eloquent  expression,  came  to  her  in  vari- 
ous forms  like  a  gift  from  heaven.  She  might  have 
written  striking  books.  She  might  have  become  fam- 
ous with  pencil  and  brush.  She  might  have  been  a 
literary  and  social  queen.  But  hers  was  a  life  of  un- 
used spices,  unrealized  visions,  undeveloped  capabili- 
ties. Her  days  were  spent  in  bearing  the  heavy  stiff 
wooden  yoke  of  practical  necessity.  Her  life  was  a 
hard,  painful,  unrelieved  struggle  for  herself  and  for 
her  children  with  the  problem  ''What  shall  we  eat, 
what  shall  we  drink,  and  wherewithal  shall  we  be 
clothed?" 

I  do  not  mention  this  as  anything  remarkable. 
Similar  instances  are  rising  in  your  minds  while  I 
speak.  You  are  thinking  now  of  some  person  whose 
lot  in  life  seems  utterly  at  variance  with  his  gifts  for 
life,  and  the  results  of  such  variance,  stifled  purposes, 
quenched  ardors,  unused  talents,  seem  a  precious  store 
of  "spices  sweet  and  ointments  rare"  brought  to  life's 
work  in  vain.  He  whose  heart  beat  in  warmest  sym- 
pathy  with  his  fellow  men  and  who  would  have  en- 
tered into  the  widest  interests  and  fellowships  of 
humanity  is  living  perhaps  in  a  solitary  dug-out  on 
the  plains.  He  is  toiling  with  shovel  and  pick  who 
under  other  circumstances  would  have  been  a  discov- 
erer of  truth  and  a  revealer  of  beauty.  In  our  shops 
and  factories  are  men  with  grimy  hands  and  black- 


UNUSED  SPICES  67 

ened  faces  who  with  different  environments  might 
have  been  merchant  princes  or  poet  preachers.  I  fre- 
quently see  before  me  in  this  sanctuary  faces,  wistful 
pathetic  faces,  in  whose  revealing  looks  I  cannot  but 
read  the  story  of  repressed  aspirations  and  impris- 
oned powers.  Life  is  full  of  arrested  development. 
Yonder  lives  a  young  man,  intelligent,  keen-eyed, 
finely  educated,  with  his  faculties  all  trained  and 
ready  for  life's  use,  but  he  is  disarmed  and  incapaci- 
tated for  work  and  advancement  by  a  crippled  body. 
AVasting  away  in  chambers  of  life-long  sickness  and 
looking  into  these  lovely  summer  days  with  eyes  full 
of  the  pathos  of  what  might  have  been  are  spirits  who 
once  burned  with  fires  of  enthusiasm  and  dreamed 
of  great  achievements. 

You  know  how  the  ferns  unfold  in  the  spring. 
They  first  appear  with  their  heads  curled  together 
and  closely  wound  up  on  the  stem  like  a  shepherd's 
crook.  Gradually  with  the  increasing  warmth  they 
unroll  themselves  until  at  last  they  stand  fully  out- 
spread. But  now  and  then  even  in  midsummer  are 
seen  ferns  with  their  highest  points  still  rolled  up. 
And  botanists  say  that  in  South  America  are  found 
whole  species  of  ferns  which  never  fully  expand. 
They  unroll  for  a  time,  then  stop  and  retain  the  in- 
volution of  their  upper  leaves  to  the  end.  Like  that 
are  some  lives.  They  unfold  beautifully  at  first. 
They  disclose  fine  beginnings  and  kindle  high  expecta- 
tions.   But  their  blossoming  is  deferred.     Some  un- 


68  UNUSED  SPICES 

toward  event  befalls  them.  Some  interrupting  influ- 
ence checks  them.    They  never  fully  expand. 

Allow  me  here  to  interject  a  thought  which  may 
not  at  first  seem  sufficiently  pertinent  to  the  matter  in 
hand.  Great  painters  say  they  cannot  put  their  best 
pictures  on  canvas.  Musical  composers  tell  of  har- 
monies which  ravish  their  own  souls  but  which  they 
cannot  arrange  in  any  score.  I  am  sure  that  in  me 
are  sermons  better  than  I  have  ever  preached  or  know 
how  to  preach.  Far  within,  among  the  deep  mysteri- 
ous chords  of  thought  and  feeling  which  vibrate  below 
consciousness  and  which  seem  to  go  out  into  the  in- 
finite and  to  be  struck  sometimes  by  fingers  of  the 
other  world,  thence  come  ideas,  emotions,  stirrings  of 
wonderful  impression  to  my  own  soul,  but  too  vague 
and  indistinct  for  expression  to  you.  This  is  nothing 
peculiar  in  me. 

Brethren,  I  tell  you  we  are  all  pretty  small,  but  the 
smallest  of  us  is  somehow  overarched  and  horizoned 
by  the  infinite  and  everlasting.  Our  minds  are  like 
the  earth,  which  is  solid  and  demonstrable  enough  be- 
neath our  feet,  but  which  above  our  heads  stretches  up 
and  widens  away  into  infinitudes  and  amplitudes  of 
far  fathomless  mysterious  sky.  "We  are  all  conscious 
of  emotions  we  cannot  utter,  thoughts  we  cannot  ex- 
press, powers  we  cannot  manifest.  Especially  con- 
scious of  them  are  we  at  such  times  as  our  souls  are 
lifted  up  by  some  majesty  of  nature,  some  power  of 
human  genius,  some  revelation  of  God. 


UNUSED  SPICES  69 

''Break,  break,  break, 

On  thy  cold  gray  stones,  O  sea! 
And  I  would  that  my  tongue  could  utter 
The  thoughts  that  arise  in  me.'^ 

Critics  have  puzzled  their  brains  over  the  meaning 
of  these  lines  and  tried  to  discover  the  connection  be- 
tween the  breaking  of  the  ocean  surges  on  the  shore 
and  the  arising  of  unutterable  thoughts  and  feelings 
in  the  mind  of  the  poet-beholder.  The  connection 
seems  plain  enough  where  we  are  now  standing.  It 
is  infinitude  in  the  ocean  awakening  the  sleeping 
strings  of  the  infinite  in  the  human  heart.  It  is  deep 
calling  unto  deep.  Which  one  of  us  has  not  felt  some- 
thing like  it  when  gazing  upon  the  snowy  summits  of 
the  everlasting  mountains  or  standing  upon  the  shore 
of  the  deep  and  dark  blue  ocean  ? 

''Break,  break,  break. 

On  thy  cold  gray  stones,  O  sea! 
And  I  would  that  my  tongue  could  utter 
The  thoughts  that  arise  in  me.^' 

But  now  why  have  I  mentioned  this?  In  order  to 
show  how  we  all  carry  unused  spices  through  life.  We 
have  powers  and  possibilities  which  do  not  get  their 
full  realization  and  manifestation  in  this  world.  We 
are  like  the  ferns.  We  cannot  yet  unfold  the  highest 
points  of  our  natures.  And  if  the  highest  points  of 
our  natures  be  the  life  and  glory  of  Christ  within 
us,  as  they  are  if  we  are  Christians,  how  can  we 
expect  to  unfold  them  here  ?  But  we  must  not  antici- 
pate our  thought. 


70  UNUSED  SPICES 

Approaching  the  subject  from  another  point  of 
\iew,  consider  how  many  persons  are  putting  aside 
their  personal  interests  and  devoting  time,  labor, 
money  to  promote  the  interests  of  others  and  help 
forward  ' '  the  lagging  causes  of  God. ' '  "We  are  always 
remarking  upon  the  selfishness  of  human  nature.  I 
am  impressed  with  the  unselfishness  of  men  and  wo- 
men. I  am  touched  by  the  sight  of  persons  who  are 
thoroughly,  sincerely  and  unstudiedly  devoting  them- 
selves to  the  good  of  others,  often  outside  of  their  own 
families.  I  see  persons  every  day  giving  the  supreme 
place  in  their  affections  and  motives  to  the  love  of 
Christ  and  the  things  of  His  kingdom.  Nothing  is  so 
dear  to  them  as  their  Master's  name.  They  are  will- 
ing to  teach,  to  go  from  house  to  house,  to  spend  time, 
to  give  money,  to  take  trouble,  to  assume  responsibil- 
ity to  do  anything  at  any  time,  at  any  sacrifice  of 
self,  for  the  sake  of  their  Lord  and  His  Church.  Their 
hearts  and  lives  are  free-will  offerings  to  God  and 
mankind. 

But  strange  as  it  may  appear,  they  are  not  always 
permitted  to  offer  them.  By  one  cause  or  another  they 
are  prohibited  from  doing  what  they  have  prepared 
themselves  to  do  and  what  their  hearts  prompt  them 
to  do.  Sometimes  it  is  want  of  recognition  or  ap- 
preciation which  holds  them  back.  In  almost  every 
community  are  men  who  after  serving  their  brethren 
most  unselfishly  both  in  public  and  private  receive, 
in  place  of  the  grateful  recognition  they  have  reason 
to  expect,  nothing  but  the  ingratitude  and  thankless 


UNUSED  SPICES  71 

criticism  of  those  whom  they  have  sought  to  help. 
It  may  be  there  are  those  in  this  church  who  are  bring- 
ing such  unused  spices  to  the  Master's  service.  It  may 
be  there  are  persons  well  qualified  to  teach  who  would 
love  to  have  six  little  ones  gathered  around  them 
every  week  in  the  Sunday  class  and  lead  them  to  the 
Good  Shepherd's  care,  but  their  services  are  not 
sought,  their  efforts  are  not  valued.  It  may  be  there 
are  those  who  weep  over  Jerusalem  like  the  Lord  and 
long  to  gather  the  unsaved  but  they  are  not  permitted 
to  speak  a  word  to  them. 

Then  how  many,  after  thoroughly  furnishing  them- 
selves for  life's  work,  are  prohibited  from  service  at 
the  very  entrance  of  their  labours  by  some  strange 
providence !    Just  as  they  are  about  to  cross  the  Jor- 
dan of  struggle  and  seize  the  bright  prospects  which 
have  long  filled  their  eyes  and  swayed  their  souls,  they 
fall  like  Moses  on  the  verge  of  their  hopes.    My  most 
intimate  friend  in  Princeton,  I  think  I  have  elsewhere 
mentioned  the  fact,  was  a  young  man  of  gifted  intel- 
lect, rare  accomplishments  and  wonderful  singleness 
of  eye  toward  his  Lord  and  Saviour.     He  had  just 
been  inducted  into  the  office  of  the  Holy  Ministry 
under  circumstances  that  betokened  an  eminent  ca- 
reer.    "While  traveling  in  the  state  of  Pennsylvania 
the  railway  coach  in  which  he  was  the  sole  occupant 
became  detached  from  the  tram  and  plunged  down  an 
embankment  and  he  was  instantly  killed.    How  many 
missionaries  have  sickened  and  died  on  their  way  to 
their  fields !    How  many  have  fallen  by  the  hand  of 


72  UNUSED  SPICES 

violence  almost  as  soon  as  they  reached  them!  How 
many  precious  spices  have  been  carried  to  Africa  and 
China  and  poured  out  there  on  the  ground ! 

Before  closing  this  part  of  my  subject  I  would  like 
to  take  our  thought  for  a  moment  into  the  very  heart 
of  Christian  experience.  That  any  person  can  truly 
turn  to  God  and  surrender  himself  into  the  diviae 
Hand  and  set  about  doing  His  works  without  receiv- 
iag  the  conscious  presence  and  communion  of  God  iuto 
his  soul,  this  from  many  passages  in  the  Bible  and 
from  almost  everything  one  hears  in  the  pulpit,  would 
seem  to  be  an  impossibility.  And  yet  I  know  I  am 
looking  into  the  faces  of  such  persons  now.  Here 
are  true  Christians,  numbers  of  them,  who  draw  near 
to  God  every  day,  but  God  does  not  seem  to  draw  near 
to  them.  They  place  the  offering  upon  the  altar,  but 
there  is  no  answer  by  fire.  They  travel  on  in  the 
path  of  duty  from  day  to  day,  but  no  divine  com- 
panion approaches  them  on  the  way  to  Emmaus  or 
the  way  to  any  city.  They  hear  others  speak  of  walk- 
ing with  God  and  of  haviug  a  real  interchange  of 
sensible  communion  with  God  and  they  wonder  if  the 
utter  lack  of  such  experience  proves  that  God  does 
not  know  them  and  that  they  have  no  part  in  His 
salvation.  ■  Of  all  the  unused  spices  of  life,  these  of 
the  unrecognized  unvisited  soul  waiting  at  the  door 
of  the  Father's  House,  unblessed  and  unable  to  go 
away  without  a  blessing,  are  the  most  difficult  to  bear 
and  to  understand.  Why  this  long  exclusion  from 
God?     "Why  this  strange  incompleteness  of  the  di- 


UNUSED  SPICES  73 

vinest  life?    "Why  this  joyless  nonfulfillment  of  the 
soul's  holiest  cravings? 

Perhaps  someone  who  is  now  listening  to  these 
words  is  trembling  with  expectation  and  thinking  that 
the  word  for  which  he  has  looked  and  waited  in  a 
thousand  sermons  is  to  be  finally  spoken  in  this  sanc- 
tuary this  morning,  and  the  perplexity  of  his  life  is  to 
be  removed  forever.  Do  not  expect  so  much  of  any 
man,  my  brother.  No  man  can  tell  you  all  you  want 
to  know.  No  man  can  reveal  the  mysteries  which 
God  has  put  in  His  own  power  and  reserved  to  Him- 
self. But  I  want  to  turn  your  eyes  to  two  or  three 
general  principles  which  are  often  forgotten  but  which 
seem  to  me  divinely  adapted  to  strengthen  the  faith 
and  comfort  the  hearts  of  those  whose  offerings  ap- 
pear to  be  refused. 

The  first  of  these  principles  is  that  God  looks  not 
upon  the  deed  but  upon  the  will.  Jesus  saw  the 
Marys  preparing  their  fragrant  offerings  and  watch- 
ing the  Sabbath  out  ''that  dark  and  lonely  day."  He 
saw  their  devotion  rising  early  Sunday  morning  while 
it  was  yet  dark  to  fulfill  their  thoughts  of  love.  The 
thick  gloaming  did  not  hide  from  His  eye  a  step  of 
their  lonely  path  to  the  sepulchre.  And  although 
their  gifts  were  not  needed,  their  love  He  received 
and  treasured  where  He  keeps  every  precious  thing. 
He  saw  what  they  would  have  done  and  accounted  it. 
To  name  their  offerings  unused  spices  is  really  a  mis- 
nomer. They  were  used,  used  in  a  high  mysterious 
way  that  never  entered  their  minds  to  conceive. 


74  UNUSED  SPICES 

*' Their  spices  rose  a  perfumed  breath 
Up  to  the  Holy  Place, 
Their  thought  was  read  where  is  no  death, 
Where  glory  follows  grace. 

And  on  these  spices  we  may  read. 

Through  all  the  times  and  lands, 
Heaven  sees  the  will  and  not  the  deed, 

And  reckons  hearts,  not  hands. ' ' 

Yes,  my  brother,  God  reckons  hearts.  He  counts 
not  what  you  have  been  but  what  you  have  wanted  to 
be,  not  what  you  have  done  but  what  you  would  have 
done.  If  you  have  really  desired  to  do  some  of  God's 
work  and  make  your  life  a  blessing  to  the  world  and 
have  not  been  permitted  to  fulfill  your  heart's  wish, 
God  sees  not  the  hindered  act  but  the  holy  wish,  and 
His  love  fills  out  all  that  your  love  thought  to  do.  If 
you  have  really  desired  God  to  come  into  your  soul 
and  draw  you  into  the  very  sanctuary  of  divine  love 
and  holiness  and  the  blessed  privilege  has  been  with- 
held, God  considers  not  the  separation  from  Him 
which  you  have  mourned  but  the  communion  which 
you  would  have  tasted  and  enjoyed.  In  a  word,  God 
gives  all  our  imavoidable  failures  the  effect  of  success 
and  does  for  our  imperfect  beginnings  and  unfulfilled 
designs  what  the  master  sometimes  does  for  his  pupil's 
incomplete  drawing.  He  fills  out  the  meagre  outline 
and  carries  the  faint  irregular  strokes  up  into  the 
beauty  of  the  finished  picture.  There  are  no  incom- 
plete lives  in  His  sight,  no  unrealized  visions,  no  un- 
fulfilled aims.  He  makes  all  complete  and  sees  every 
work  of  man  as  the  worker's  heart  devised  it. 


UNUSED  SPICES  75 

There  is  a  second  principle.  God  regards  not  suc- 
cess but  character  as  the  chief  end  of  blessedness  of 
life.  Success  is  a  very  desirable  thing,  my  friends. 
Success  is  the  grateful  end  of  labor  and  I  do  not  in- 
tend to  disparage  it.  But  success  is  not  all.  It  is  not 
the  great  thing,  at  least  to  the  worker  himself.  To 
others  it  may  be  very  important  that  you  should  reach 
your  noble  ends  and  realize  your  high  aspirations. 
But  to  you  there  is  something  more  important  than 
realization.  Character  is  more  important.  Spiritual 
worthiness  and  perfection  of  soul  are  more  important. 
The  good  that  is  put  into  your  hands  in  the  form  of 
success  is  a  poor  possession  compared  with  the  good 
that  goes  down  into  your  soul  in  the  form  of  purified 
desires,  disciplined  powers,  greatened  capabilities. 
And  do  you  not  know  it,  a  great  deal  more  often  goes 
down  into  your  soul  when  nothing  at  all  is  put  into 
j^our  hands,  when  your  self-sacrifice  for  others  re- 
ceives no  reward  of  recognition,  no  response  of  human 
gratitude,  when  you  are  driven  down  for  your  reward 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  blessedness  of  self-sacrifice 
itself,  whether  recognized  or  unrecognized,  honored  or 
despised.  That  is  character,  that  is  likeness  to  the 
Father  and  to  the  Son,  and  it  is  worth  more  to  you 
than  all  the  rewards  that  can  possibly  be  heaped  upon 
you.  When  you  are  struggling  in  obedience  to  Christ, 
and  without  any  conscious  enjoyment  of  Him  are  con- 
tinuing faithful  to  Him  and  finding  your  satisfac- 
tion in  doing  His  will  though  it  be  in  darkness,  then, 
be  well  assured  of  it,  you  are  honoring  Christ  more 


76  UNUSED  SPICES 

and  are  being  perfected  more  in  your  own  inner  spir- 
itual being  than  if  all  your  desires  were  fulfilled  and 
you  were  gazing  into  the  visible  glory  of  God's  face. 
Ah  friends,  to  be  true  and  faithful  is  more  than  to 
accomplish.  To  live  in  the  essence  of  religion  is  better 
than  to  live  in  its  rewards.  To  be  obedient  is  higher 
than  to  be  happy.  Character  is  nobler  than  success. 
Have  you  not  felt  the  truth  and  reality  of  this  by  the 
presence  of  some  beautiful  character  sent  straight 
from  God  who  long  ago  perhaps  was  sitting  by  your 
side  in  this  sanctuary  ? 

There  is  another  greater  principle,  though  I  cannot 
here  apply  it.  Not  in  this  world  but  in  yonder 
Heaven  of  God  are  we  to  find  the  full  completion  and 
satisfying  fulfillment  of  our  lives.  Abraham  left 
everything  behind  him  and  went  out  from  his  own 
country  to  possess  a  land  which  God  promised  to  give 
him.  All  he  took  possession  of  in  this  world  was  a 
grave.  Moses  gave  up  the  honors  of  Egypt  and  re- 
fused to  be  called  the  son  of  Pharaoh's  daughter  for 
the  sake  of  leading  God's  people  into  a  glorious  in- 
heritance. All  he  ever  realized  of  it  on  earth  was  a 
distant  vision  of  it  from  the  summit  of  Mount  Nebo. 
The  disciples  of  Christ  forsook  their  fishing  boats  and 
gave  up  all  things  for  the  sake  of  sitting  on  thrones 
in  their  Master's  Kingdom.  The  thrones  which  they 
sat  upon  were  martyr's  flames. 

Every  supernatural  life  of  man  measured  by  its 
fulfillments  in  this  world  is  a  failure.  Only  that 
which  is  wholly  of  the  earth  finds  its  satisfaction  in 


UNUSED  SPICES  77 

the  earth.  All  who  would  live  greatly  and  follow  after 
hopes  of  perfection  and  blessedness  must  expect  to 
attain  them  through  present  failures  and  disappoint- 
ments, through  empty  aching  hearts  and  weak  and 
wearied  hands. 

But  what  are  these,  what  are  all  earth's  failures 
and  struggles,  toils  and  sorrows  and  cares,  in  com- 
parison of  the  blessedness  of  Heaven?  0,  I  am  per- 
suaded that  with  one  view  of  the  Uncreated  Beauty 
in  our  eyes,  one  feeling  of  the  absence  of  all  sin 
from  the  soul  in  our  consciences,  one  transformation 
into  the  Divine  Likeness  on  our  faces,  one  breath 
of  that  air  **  where  work  is  rest  and  every  movement 
a  song"  in  our  breasts,  and  all  we  have  endured  and 
suffered  here  will  be  swallowed  up  and  forgotten 
forever.  Then  we  shall  find  that  nothing  we  have 
ever  done  or  thought  to  do  for  the  Lord  has  been 
lost,  and  that  the  very  failures  and  disappointments 
which  have  seemed  to  hide  Him  from  our  eyes  and 
make  it  impossible  for  us  to  serve  Him  have  secretly 
prepared  our  eyes  to  behold  Him  and  our  souls 
to  serve  Him  always. 

''For  though  unused  their  fragrant  store, 
Yet  well  might  they  rejoice, 
Since  they  the  first  who  saw  the  Lord 
The  first  who  heard  His  voice.'* 


IDEAL  AIMS. 

Fellow  teachers  and  fellow  scholars,  it  gives  me 
real  pleasure  to  stand  here  to-night,  for  I  will  not 
disguise  the  genuine  feeling  of  my  heart  that  in  being 
invited  to  address  you  I  have  been  highly  honored. 
It  has  seldom  fallen  to  my  lot  to  speak  to  an  audience 
of  persons  who  may  be  so  justly  characterized  as 
the  nation's  character  builders.  The  creators  of 
Venice  were  her  architects.  But  the  architects  of 
America  are  her  schoolmasters.  Indeed  in  our  whole 
social  system  I  know  of  but  one  human  influence 
of  such  extensive  and  powerful  operation  as  that  of 
our  American  teachers — ^that  other  is  the  influence 
wielded  by  American  mothers. 

I  am  relieved  of  all  perplexity  in  choosing  my  line 
of  thought  to-night  by  the  form  of  the  invitation 
with  which  the  officers  of  your  association  honored 
me.  They  requested  me  to  repeat  on  this  occasion 
some  thoughts  which  I  had  presented  in  another  place 
on  the  Ideal  Aims  of  Life. 

Every  human  life  has  an  ideal.  Every  bark  on  the 
sea  of  human  existence  sights  golden  islands.    Every 


An  address  given  before  the  State  Teachers'  Association,  La- 
crosse, Wis.,  and  at  Ripon  College;  Lake  Forest  University; 
Rockford  Ladies'  Seminary,  111.;  Waukesha  Academy,  Wis.;  Fox 
Lake  Seminary,  Wis.;  Delaware  Literary  Institute,  Franklin,  N. 
Y.,  June,  1884:  used  as  a  sermon  in  the  Central  Presbyterian 
Church,  Rochester,  1881,  and  the  Presbyterian  Church,  Nineveh, 
N.  Y.,  1883;  also  preached  as  a  baccalaureate  sermon  at  Whitney's 
Point  Academy,  N.  Y,,  1886;  Binghamton  Central  High  School, 
1886;  Union  School,  Greene,  N.  Y.,  1896. 

78 


IDEAL  AIMS  79 

man,  woman,  child  paints  a  dawning  and  sunrise 
on  the  future  and  foUows  the  light  of  something  that 
goes  above  and  before.  The  Italian  beggar  in  his 
rags  and  filth  has  his  ideal,  though  it  be  nothing 
higher  than  to  lie  in  the  sun  and  eat  macaroni.  The 
girl  who  serves  fixes  her  eye  upon  something  above 
her  service.  Some  vision  passes  before  her  face  and 
her  heart  leaps  upward  in  desire.  There  is  a  glory 
and  a  dream  streaming  radiance  and  inspirations 
down  into  the  eyes  of  the  boy  following  the  furrow 
of  the  plow. 

To  wear  rich  dress,  to  own  a  carriage,  to  live  in  a 
large  house,  to  grow  wealthy  and  enjoy  ease  and  ele- 
gance, these,  though  material  aims,  are  none  the  less 
ideals  to  those  who  cherish  them.  Whatever  consti- 
tutes a  man's  highest  good,  whatever  controls  the 
direction  of  his  thoughts,  fixes  the  desire  of  his  heart, 
is  his  ideal.  And  so  the  world  is  full  of  ideals.  If 
they  were  visible  all  the  air  around  us  would  be  evi- 
dently cut  through  and  through  by  human  aims, 
aims  near  and  far,  low  and  high,  feeble  and  swift, 
flying  like  winged  spirits  in  every  possible  direction 
and  darkening  the  atmosphere. 

Of  this  innumerable  host  and  great  cloud  of  ideals 
not  one  but  is  secretly  drawing  out  a  mind  and  de- 
veloping a  character.  In  youth  we  are  anxious  for 
the  best  scholastic  instruction.  Later  in  life  we  set 
great  store  by  principles,  conditions,  habits.  Mean- 
while life  and  character  are  being  determined  by 
something  quite  different  from  any  of  them.     It  is 


80  IDEAL  AIMS 

what  a  man  lays  to  heart  and  lives  by,  what  in  his  in- 
most soul  he  loves,  covets,  desires,  aims  for,  that  in 
the  end  molds  his  being  and  shapes  his  destiny.  Our 
aims  are  our  real  educators.  Our  architects  are  our 
ideals.  What  character  builders  they  are!  Imaged 
before  the  mind's  conception  continually,  the  plastic 
forces  of  thought  and  feeling  catch  their  features 
and  transfer  them  to  the  mind  itself.  They  melt  into 
the  soul  and  impregnate  it.  And  what  revealers  of 
character  our  ideals  are !  Surer  than  our  acts.  Men 
often  act  for  a  reason  and  agreeably  to  custom.  But 
these  ideals  show  their  souls  and  register  their  exact 
essential  value. 

But  now  why  have  anything  to  do  with  ideal  aims  ? 
Why  not  rather,  as  some  sneeringly  say,  leave  this 
feeding  on  fantasies  to  poets  and  painters  and  dream- 
ers, and  for  our  part  attend  to  the  business  of  our 
crafts,  trades,  professions,  and  try  to  help  on  the 
practical  work  of  life  ?  Certainly  every  man  requires 
to  have  his  special  work,  requires  to  submit  himself 
to  the  yoke  of  some  craft,  trade  or  profession.  In 
the  great  majority  of  cases  the  necessities  of  food  and 
raiment  make  this  imperative.  But  besides  that  the 
highest  ends  of  life  require  it.  Intellectual  vigor 
and  moral  health  demand  the  conserving  influences 
of  a  useful  employment.  No  nature  can  subsist  on 
leisure  or  float  in  sunbeams.  Shakespeare  himself 
must  stand  squarely  on  the  ground.  Michael  Angelo 
must  exercise  his  ^ve  senses  and  be  familiar  with 
facts.     The  soaring  faiths  and  fervors  of  St.  John 


IDEAL  AIMS  81 

must  rest  on  sensible  realities  which  he  has  seen 
with  his  eyes,  heard  with  his  ears,  and  his  hands 
have  handled  of  the  Word  of  Life.  Even  the  cheru- 
bim of  Ezekiel  sometimes  required  to  let  down  their 
wings  and  stand  on  their  feet. 

But  because  man  must  needs  stand  on  the  ground, 
sunlight  and  starlight  are  not  therefore  impertinences 
to  him.  He  does  more  work  and  better  work  whose 
windows  open  to  the  irradiations  of  an  ideal  attain- 
ment. The  horse  submitting  to  move  round  and 
round  in  the  treadmill  with  aimless  eye  and  languid 
neck  is  not  the  highest  type  of  practical  energy. 
Far  grander  spectacle  is  a  boy  in  college  reaching 
forward  night  and  day  toward  the  prize  of  his  ambi- 
tion, counting  labor  nothing  and  rest  nothing,  health 
nothing  and  sickness  nothing,  blinding  his  eye  to 
nothing  and  siclmess  nothing,  blinding  his  eye  to  pres- 
ent hardships  and  present  pleasures,  seeing  nothing 
but  the  master-light  of  the  future  and  throwing  him- 
self forward  with  all  his  powers  toward  that.  Be- 
sides a  man  is  something  more  than  his  trade.  The 
human  soul  cannot  be  fully  expressed  in  terms  of 
blacksmithing  or  shoemaking  or  bookmaking.  * '  There 
is  a  spirit  in  man  and  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty 
giveth  him  understanding. ' ' 

And  it  is  the  very  voice  and  stimulus  of  that  in- 
spiration to  perpetually  protest  against  the  actual 
attainments  of  human  life  and  to  keep  alive  in  the 
secret  soul  of  man  the  vision  of  an  ideal  perfection. 
It  is  given  to  the  brutes  around  us  to  lie  down  in 


82  IDEAL  AIMS 

placid  repose  and  cliew  the  cud  of  ruminating  con- 
tentment. But  in  man  there  is  something — whether 
it  be  a  reminiscence  from  Eden  lost  or  a  presentiment 
from  a  golden  daybreak  to  come  I  will  not  say — 
but  something  haunting,  something  goading  there 
certainly  is  which  ever  more  urges  the  human  soul 
toward  an  attainment  and  a  beauty  surpassing  the 
realities  of  experience.  Accordingly  youthful  minds 
and  minds  of  the  nobler  sort  throughout  life  have 
ever  been  idealizing  minds.  They  have  craved  some- 
thing above  the  low  contentments  of  a  sense-bound 
existence.  They  have  apprehended  for  themselves 
and  for  others  the  vision  of  a  good  brighter  and  better 
than  eye  hath  seen  or  ear  heard.  If  in  some  instances 
this  craving  after  an  ideal  good  instead  of  allying  itself 
with  all  that  is  true  and  noble  has  been  seduced  by 
attractive  delusions  and  prostituted  to  loathsome  em- 
braces, yet  its  very  crimes  have  testified  to  the  energy 
of  its  impulse  and  the  greatness  of  its  origin.  If 
nearly  all  ideal  seekers  have  failed  to  realize  every- 
thing they  aimed  for,  they  have  at  least  had  the  joy 
of  the  pursuit,  and  their  failures,  transcending  all 
other  successes,  shine  evermore  as  the  fairest  tokens 
and  highest  glories  of  our  humanity. 

Now  if  it  be  a  fact  that  every  life  must  of  necessity 
have  some  ideal  aim  and  that  aim  whatever  it  be  de- 
termines the  worth  and  beauty  of  the  character,  then 
it  becomes  an  inquiry  of  closest  concern  to  every  per- 
son and  especially  every  young  person  what  this  gov- 
erning power  and  guiding  light  shall  be. 


IDEAL  AIMS  83 

There  are  in  general  three  kinds  of  ideal  aims.  One 
class  of  minds  live  to  the  phenomenal  world.  They 
make  matter  all.  They  fix  the  supreme  end  of  life 
in  the  acquisition  of  external  goods.  They  conceive 
nothing  more  ultimate  than  bodily  health  and  wealth. 
And  wealth,  which  was  once  a  word  of  large  meaning, 
which  was  weal  and  welfare,  has  become  so  shrivelled 
up  in  their  etymology  as  to  be  synonymous  with 
houses  and  barns.  They  adore  new  inventions,  sani- 
tary improvements,  rapid  locomotion,  railroads, 
steam,  coal,  and  the  electric  telegraph.  "Whatsoever 
things  are  healthy,  whatsoever  things  are  economical, 
whatsoever  things  are  labor-saving,  whatsoever  things 
enhance  the  value  of  real  estate,  whatsoever  things 
can  be  turned  into  money,  if  there  be  anything  that 
will  bake  bread  and  if  there  be  anything  that  will 
quicken  the  liver  and  enable  one  to  dine  nicely  and 
sleep  soundly,  think  on  these  things.  For  a  man's 
life  consists  in  the  abundance  of  the  things  which  he 
possesses.  And  man  himself,  created  a  little  lower 
than  the  angels,  consists  of  palate,  nose,  touch,  eye 
and  ear,  these  ^ve  and  no  more. 

This  is  the  underlying  philosophy  of  much  modern 
life,  a  life  which  idolizes  forces  and  overlooks  pow- 
ers, which  worships  means  and  forgets  ends,  which 
teaches  that  man  was  made  for  things  and  not  things 
for  man,  which  materializes  and  vulgarizes  the  very 
mould  of  the  forehead  and  lustre  of  the  eyes  and 
tones  of  the  voice.  And  not  only  the  present  but 
the  future  is  impoverished.     If  America  shall  con- 


84  IDEAL  AIMS 

tinue  to  be  a  word  to  haunt  the  imagination  and 
tingle  in  the  ear,  if  boys  and  girls  of  the  twentieth 
century  shall  dilate  with  inspirations  about  the  fire- 
side or  have  their  Plutarch  and  Carlyle  under  the 
desk  at  school,  they  will  not  owe  it  to  a  tendency 
which  worships  money  bags  and  machinery  and 
breeds  sots  and  cowards.  ''Every  day,"  says  Mr. 
Froude  in  his  Leaves  from  a  South  African  Journal, 
''I  grow  more  convinced  that  all  political  questions 
resolve  themselves  into  one.  "What  object  do  the 
ruling  powers  set  before  themselves  ?  Is  it  to  produce 
a  noble  race  of  men  or  is  it  to  produce  what  they 
call  wealth?  If  they  aim  chiefly  at  the  second  they 
will  not  have  the  first.  Every  wise  man,  whether 
Solomon  or  Plato,  Horace  or  Shakespeare,  has  but 
one  answer  on  this  subject.  'Where  your  treasure  is 
there  will  your  heart  be.'  Let  wealth  be  the  sublime 
end  of  our  existence  and  no  new  English  nations  will 
be  born  in  English  colonies,  England  itself  will  be- 
come a  huge  grazing  farm,  managed  on  economical 
principles,  and  the  people,  however  rich  they  may 
appear,  will  be  steadily  going  down  to  what  used  to 
be  called  the  devil." 

There  is  a  second  class  of  minds  who  look  above 
the  material  appliances  and  embellishments  of  being 
to  the  perfection  of  the  being  himself.  They  seek 
first  the  inward  and  personal.  Not  machinery  but 
manhood  is  the  object  of  their  homage.  They  exalt 
man  himself  as  immeasurably  greater  than  aU  his 
outward  goods  put  together.     They  lift  up  vehement 


IDEAL  AIMS  85 

protest  against  the  prevailing  materialism  of  the 
age.  They  denounce  Mammon-worship  as  vulgar 
and  degrading  and  in  their  own  dialect  cry  out  al- 
most as  earnestly  as  the  Divine  Voice  itself,  *'What 
shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the  whole  world  and 
lose  his  own  soul?"  These  are  the  apostles  of  cul- 
ture. They  are  leading  writers,  artists,  naturalists 
and  men  of  science  at  the  present  hour. 

Self-culture  proposes  as  our  ideal  aim  a  rounded 
and  harmoniously  developed  human  nature.  "Perfect 
thyself"  is  its  watchword.  It  holds  with  the  old 
sophist  that  man  himself  is  the  measure  and  end  of 
all  things  and  that  man  exists  not  chiefly  for  what 
can  be  accomplished  by  him  but  for  what  can  be  ac- 
complished in  him  and  on  him.  Self-culture  calls 
upon  each  and  every  one  of  us  to  set  earnestly  to 
work  completing  himself  on  all  sides  and  raising 
every  faculty  and  capacity  of  his  nature  to  its  ut- 
most limit  of  excellence.  It  seeks  to  inspire  us  with 
a  sense  of  our  self-sufficiency  and  points  out  our  own 
self-enlightenment  and  self-accomplishment  as  the 
true  well-spring  of  our  most  satisfying  pleasures,  ever 
open  at  our  door  and  springing  at  our  feet. 

Here  is  a  picture  of  the  ideal  man  sketched  by  a 
much-admired  master  in  this  school.  I  call  him  an 
ideally  educated  man  ''who  has  been  so  trained  in 
his  youth  that  his  body  is  the  ready  servant  of  his 
will  and  does  with  ease  and  pleasure  all  the  work  that 
as  a  mechanism  it  is  capable  of,  whose  intellect  is  a 
clear  precise  logic-engine  with  all  its  parts  of  equal 


86  IDEAL  AIMS 

strength  and  ready  to  be  turned  to  any  kind  of  work, 
to  spin  the  gossamers  as  well  as  forge  the  anchors  of 
thought,  whose  mind  is  stored  with  the  great  and 
fundamental  truths  of  nature  and  the  laws  of  her 
operations;  one  who,  no  stunted  ascetic,  is  full  of 
life  and  fire,  but  whose  passions  are  trained  to  come 
to  heel  by  a  vigorous  will,  the  servant  of  a  tender 
conscience ;  who  has  learned  to  love  all  beauty  whether 
of  nature  or  of  art,  to  hate  all  vileness  and  to  respect 
others  as  himself/' 

This  is  a  high  calling.  There  is  something  higher, 
as  I  hope  to  convince  you  before  I  close.  But  com- 
pared with  the  ordinary  standards  to  which  human 
lives  are  directed  this  is  indeed  a  lofty  aim.  And 
when  set  forth  in  the  clear  crystal  speech  of  a  Huxley 
or  illustrated  by  the  brilliant  and  universal  genius 
of  a  Goethe  or  warmed  into  the  semblance  of  life  by 
the  poetic  enthusiasm  of  a  Matthew  Arnold,  it  is 
not  strange  that  this  ideal  of  self-culture  possesses 
a  great  fascination  for  many  young  ardent  minds  who 
have  yet  had  little  experience  of  the  truth  about  their 
o^Ti  natures  or  the  truth  of  things. 

The  fatal  defect  of  this  aim  is  the  inability  to  get 
itself  realized.  It  lacks  the  dynamic  element.  It 
has  no  sufficient  inspiration-force.  Like  the  flowers 
stuck  in  the  play  garden  of  the  child,  it  looks  very 
attractive  for  a  time  but  because  it  has  no  root  it 
soon  withers  away.  Some  of  you  will  be  at  no  loss 
to  understand  the  reason  of  this.  Man  is  not  an 
original   fountain   of  power.     He   is  a   receiver   of 


IDEAL  AIMS  87 

power  and  a  conductor  of  power.  He  was  made  to 
have  current  and  be  in  flood.  He  is  strong,  lie  is 
complete,  precisely  in  the  degree  that  he  is  lifted  out 
of  self,  made  utterly  regardless  of  self,  and  put  into 
the  flow  of  the  inspiration-torrents  of  nature,  of 
brotherhood  and  of  God.  ''Men  of  extraordinary 
success,"  says  Emerson,  ''in  their  honest  moments 
have  always  sung,  'not  unto  us,  not  unto  us.'  Ac- 
cording to  the  faith  of  their  times  they  have  built 
altars  to  Fortune,  to  Destiny  or  to  Jesus.  Their  suc- 
cess lay  in  their  surrender  to  tides  which  found  in 
them  an  unobstructed  channel.  "What  seemed  to  be 
will  and  self-seeking  was  in  reality  willingness  and 
self-annihilation. ' ' 

But  self-culture  separates  man  from  all  the  great 
exhaustless  reservoirs  of  thought  and  feeling  and 
power.  It  shuts  him  up  in  simple  selfhood.  It  starts 
from  self  and  returns  to  self.  It  centres  the  soul  on 
itself  and  requires  it  to  evolve  perfection  from  its 
own  internal  resources — a  thing  as  impossible  as  for 
a  sponge  suspended  in  mid  air  to  fill  and  flood  itself 
or  for  a  plant  cut  off  from  the  forces  of  soil  and 
sunshine  to  evolve  its  own  blossom.  The  sponge  re- 
quires to  be  centered  in  the  sea  and  given  up  to  the 
sea,  the  plant  requires  to  be  set  in  the  circle  of  earth 
and  air,  and  human  spirits  require  to  be  set  in  and 
be  possessed  by  the  infinite  and  illimitable  Spirit. 

No  doubt  a  man  by  painfully  bending  over  his  own 
image  may  erase  some  outward  imperfections  and 
polish  some  exterior  surfaces,  but  when  it  is  talked 


88  IDEAL  AIMS 

about  furnishing  and  completing  a  soul,  when  the 
word  is  self-perfection,  a  thing  we  are  not  able  rightly 
to  imagine,  much  less  to  embody,  the  result  is  sure 
to  be  an  egotistical  finish  of  veneering  indifferently 
laid  on,  impossible  to  keep  from  falling  off  and  desti- 
tute of  all  reality,  strength,  and  beauty.  The  idea 
of  self-culture,  if  I  may  borrow  a  forcible  figure 
from  Julius  Hare,  impales  a  man  on  his  own  personal 
pronoun.  Ever  present  I  is  the  stake  which  is  driven 
through  the  soul  of  self-cultured  suicide.  And  what 
is  this  but  the  fulfillment  of  the  old  words,  '^  Who- 
soever will  save  his  own  life  shall  lose  it ! " 

It  is  another  defect  of  the  culture  theory  that  it  is 
for  the  few  and  not  for  the  many,  for  the  lettered 
and  not  for  the  simple,  for  the  study  and  academy, 
and  not  for  the  workshop  and  nursery.  It  is  a  fastidi- 
ous exclusive  aim,  which  has  no  room  to  receive  and 
no  welcome  to  extend  to  the  great  multitude  of  work- 
ers whose  lot  is  cast  in  the  humbler  places  of  life,  who 
know  little  of  this  world's  learning  but  much,  very 
much  of  its  toil  and  endurance  and  suffering.  There 
is  privation  in  the  world.  There  are  chambers  of  pro- 
tracted and  distressing  sickness.  There  are  desert 
places  of  the  affections  created  not  always  by  the 
grave.  There  are  deep  dark  caverns  of  oppression 
where  beautiful  and  noble  aspirations  like  under- 
ground streams  struggle  long  and  heroically  but  never 
reach  the  light  of  realization. 

To  the  eye  of  self-culture  these  are  all  strange 
anomalies,  blank  spaces,  lost  experiences,  periods  of 


IDEAL  AIMS  89 

utter  and  incomprehensible  waste.  And  yet  out  of 
these  privative  conditions  we  all  have  seen  some  men 
and  possibly  more  women  emerge  at  last  crowned  with 
chaplets  of  strange  surpassing  hues,  "led  by  some 
secret  way  up  to  the  serenest  and  most  beautiful 
heights  of  character."  O  my  brother  scholars,  God 
exists.  There  exists  and  there  works  in  and  over  our 
lives  a  Higher  Wisdom  than  our  own.  High  above 
all  our  self-chosen  aims  and  ideals  there  exists  cre- 
ated for  each  of  us  in  His  eternal  thought,  determined 
for  each  of  us  by  one  particular  mould  of  being  and 
realizable  by  each  of  us  under  His  shaping  hand,  an 
ideal  of  perfection  and  beauty  far  excelling  anything 
that  has  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  imagine. 

I  come  now  to  speak  of  the  last  and  supreme  ideal 
aim  of  human  existence.  That  was  a  fine  conjecture 
of  the  divine  Plato  that  each  human  personality  is  the 
offspring  or  product  of  a  preconceived  plan  and  eternal 
idea  in  the  Infinite  Mind.  Let  me  illustrate  his  meaning. 
When  God  held  the  seeds  of  all  vegetation  in  His 
hand  at  the  beginning  of  creation  what  did  He?  He 
informed  the  Spirit  of  life  which  He  concealed  in 
the  bosom  of  each  germ  with  a  certain  plan.  In  mys- 
terious symbol  he  wrote  in  one,  rose ;  in  another,  palm 
tree ;  in  a  third,  pine  and  so  on.  And  when  one  un- 
folded into  a  thing  of  beauty  and  another  developed 
into  a  son  of  consolation  for  the  weary  traveler  of 
the  desert  and  the  next  shot  up  into  a  magnificent  in- 
stance of  towering  majesty,  it  was  simply  the  mani- 
festation of  the  thought  which  God  had  formed  for 


90  IDEAL  AIMS 

each  and  hidden  in  each  at  the  outset.  So,  speculated 
the  great  Greek  seer,  may  there  not  be  eternal  forms 
of  thought,  mysterious  conceptions  of  the  Infinite 
Mind,  existing  in  and  for  human  souls?  But  the 
golden  fancy  of  the  golden  Dreamer  is  only  a  dim 
anticipation  of  the  plain  matter-of-fact  teaching  of 
the  Christian  revelation.  It  is  there  distinctly  set 
forth  that  each  individual  soul  contains  wrapped  up 
in  the  centre  of  his  being  an  original  divine  ideal  of 
perfection  and  beauty  differentiating  him  both  in  the 
plan  and  in  the  results  of  his  unfolding  from  every 
other  individual  and  transcending  in  majesty  and 
glory  all  his  highest  conceptions. 

''Every  human  soul,"  says  Bushnell,  ''has  a  com- 
plete and  perfect  plan,  cherished  for  it  in  the  heart  of 
God — a  divine  biography  marked  out,  which  it  enters 
into  life  to  live.     This  life,  rightly  unfolded,  will  be 

a  complete  and  beautiful  whole, a  drama  cast 

in  the  mould  of  a  perfect  art,  with  no  part  wanting ; 

a  divine  study  that  shall  forever  unfold,  in 

wondrous  beauty,  the  love  and  faithfulness  of  God; 
great  in  its  conception,  great  in  the  Divine  skill  by 
which  it  is  shaped;  above  all  great  in  the  momentous 
and  glorious  issues  it  prepares.  What  a  thought  is 
this  for  a  human  soul  to  cherish ! What  insti- 
gations does  it  add  to  send  us  onward  in  everything 
that  constitutes  our  excellence !  We  live  in  the  Divine 
thought.    We  exist  to  realize  a  divine  life  plan." 

But  now  arises  the  question  how  one  is  to  under- 
stand his  divine  life  plan  so  as  to  enter  into  it — ^how 


IDEAL  AIMS  91 

he  is  to  apprehend  his  divme  life  ideal  so  as  to  strive 
intelligently  toward  it.  He  cannot  apprehend  it  di- 
rectly. He  cannot  yet  see  it  from  its  upper  side. 
Nor  is  it  necessary  that  he  should.  It  is  not  necessary 
that  the  soldier  should  get  hold  of  the  secret  plan  of 
the  campaign  in  order  to  his  entering  into  the  opera- 
tions of  the  battle  or  sharing  in  the  results  of  the  vic- 
tory. It  is  only  necessary  that  he  accept  with  a  sol- 
dier's fealty  and  a  soldier's  pride  his  general's  au- 
thority upon  him,  fixing  his  position,  assigning  his 
duty,  bidding  him  hold  that  or  die. 

And  so,  my  friends,  to  find  your  way  into  God's 
life-plan  for  you  and  to  be  ever  reaching  forth  toward 
His  perfect  life-ideal  you  have  but  to  come  trustfully 
and  courageously  under  the  allegiance  of  His  all- 
righteous  will.  Be  it  yours  to  renounce  self,  to  cease 
from  self-chosen  aims  and  to  go  forth  into  life  in 
the  strength  of  this  one  wovd— duty,  and  all  the  rest 
will  follow.  Yes,  if  you  ask  me  to  name  the  highest 
ideal  aim  and  truest  end  which  any  man  can  possibly 
set  before  him,  I  shall  say  that  as  seen  from  the  side 
of  earth  as  it  presents  itself  now,  it  consists  in  the 
fulfillment  of  his  moral  obligations. 

Moral  obligations  are  of  three  kinds.  Faith  and 
obedience  to  God  our  Father— love  and  sympathy  to 
man  our  brother— earnest  careful  study  and  reverent 
use  of  Nature,  our  abode.  I  have  no  time  to  dwell 
upon  these  obligations  in  detail.  Nor  is  there  any 
necessity.  You  are  instructed  in  them  from  the  pro- 
fessor's chair  and  from  the  preacher's  desk.    But  I 


92  IDEAL  AIMS 

wish  to  speak  a  few  words  not  so  much  in  the  way 
of  instruction  as  in  the  spirit  of  brotherhood  and  con- 
gratulation to  as  many  of  you  as  are  minded  to  in- 
scribe high  above  every  other  word  upon  your  stand- 
ard that  most  sublime  and  sacred  of  all  words,  duty. 

You  have  chosen  an  ideal,  young  men  and  women, 
which  takes  up  into  itself  all  that  is  good  in  other 
aims,  which  supplements  them  and  makes  them  per- 
fect. Some  of  you  may  have  read  the  .grand  book  on 
Culture  and  Religion,  which  came  a  few  years  ago 
from  the  hand  of  the  newly  elected  Professor  of 
Poetry  at  Oxford.  If  so  you  will  not  have  forgotten 
a  truth  which  he  dwells  much  upon  and  which  is  weU 
known  to  all  who  have  reflected  on  the  subject — the 
truth  that  the  very  way  to  miss  some  things  is  to  seek 
them,  while  to  abandon  them  and  rise  above  them  in 
a  higher  aim  is  to  surely  attain  them.  Take  beauty 
for  instance;  aim  at  being  beautiful  and  you  will 
never  reach  it.  But  aim  beyond  and  above  it — aim 
at  strength,  purity,  goodness,  and  somehow,  as  if  it 
were  an  emanation  from  these  higher  qualities, 
beauty  of  expression  appears  on  the  face  and  grace 
of  action  distinguishes  the  manner.  So  with  happi- 
ness— ^no  one  ever  found  real  happiness  by  seeking 
to  be  happy.  But  fountains  of  sweetest  pleasure 
spring  up  in  the  high  paths  of  search  after  truth  and 
self-sacrifice  for  the  good  of  others. 

Well,  precisely  so  with  the  ends  proposed  by  self- 
culture,  self-enlightenment,  self -accomplishment.  He 
who    seeks    these    things    first    and    highest    misses 


IDEAL  AIMS  93 

them,  while  he  who  makes  the  will  of  God 
his  rule  and  duty,  his  ultimate  aim,  not  only  gains 
what  he  seeks,  but  finds  all  truest  and  loveliest  self- 
perfections  gathering  upon  him  of  themselves  with- 
out his  being  aware  how  they  come.  Be  sure  of  it, 
he  exalts  and  idealizes  his  own  nature  most  effectually 
who  sinks  himself  most  deeply  in  submission  to  his 
God  and  in  loving  service  of  his  fellow  beings. 

It  belongs  secondly  to  the  ideal  you  have  chosen 
to  unite  you  in  a  bond  of  brotherhood  with  your 
parents  at  home,  with  one  another  here  in  school, 
and  with  all  the  noblest  spirits  of  the  race. 

One  of  the  most  pathetic  spectacles  I  have  ever  been 
called  to  witness  has  been  when  fond  parents  and 
sisters  have  toiled  late  and  early,  denying  themselves, 
to  send  a  son  and  brother  to  college,  and  that  young 
man  has  come  home  after  a  course  of  study  cold,  con- 
temptuous, cynical,  the  old  faith  gone,  the  former 
sympathy  dead,  and  a  smitten  family  are  compelled  to 
see  that  the  pride  of  the  household  has  chosen  for 
himself  a  far  other  road  than  that  in  which  they  are 
traveling  and  in  which  they  had  hoped  he  would 
travel  with  them  and  lead  them. 

A  thousand  seeds  must  fall  into  the  ground  and  be 
watered  in  tears  that  one  may  ripen  to  the  full  ear. 
A  thousand  soldiers  must  fall  and  lie  in  the  trenches 
that  one  may  triumphantly  mount  the  breach.  But 
they  are  satisfied  to  lie  there,  their  hearts  will  thrill 
and  leap  upward  to  join  him  when  they  see  their 
brother  bearing  the  sacred  banner  above  the  scaled 


94  IDEAL  AIMS 

heights,  because  they  Imow  it  is  a  victory  at  once  his 
and  theirs.  And  in  like  manner  the  numbers  who 
must  toil  at  home  unseen  for  every  privileged  one 
who  is  permitted  to  climb  the  heights  of  knowledge 
and  wisdom  are  well  content  to  toil  there,  will  even 
find  their  joy  in  toiling  there,  if  only  the  tie  of 
brotherhood  between  him  and  them  be  preserved,  if 
only  they  may  see  their  dearest  hopes  cherished  in 
his  attainments,  the  highest  aims  of  their  souls  and 
of  humanity  advanced  by  his  successes.  For  brother- 
hood is  not  by  equality,  not  by  likeness,  but  by  giving 
and  receiving.  It  is  when  souls  that  are  unlike,  con- 
ditions that  are  unlike,  possessions  that  are  unlike  are 
bound  together  in  one  noble  whole  by  all  seeking  the 
same  ultimate  ends  and  by  each  receiving  something 
from  and  of  the  other 's  gifts  and  the  other 's  glory. 

Finally  you  have  espoused  an  ideal  for  the  realiza- 
tion of  which  is  working  a  higher  Wisdom  than  your 
own.  You  see  yonder  sculptor  in  the  midst  of  his 
marbles.  One  is  far  advanced  toward  completion, 
another  is  in  the  midst  of  the  work,  while  still  another 
was  commenced  but  yesterday.  But  how  he  loves 
them  all!  He  would  not  have  you  lift  a  blow  upon 
them.  "What!  are  pieces  of  dead  stone  then  so  dear 
in  his  eyes?  O  no,  it  is  not  that,  but  the  living  con- 
ceptions which  his  genius  has  implanted  in  the  stones 
and  which  he  is  purposing  to  bring  out  upon  them. 
This  is  to  be  a  Columbus,  that  an  Abraham  Lincoln, 
the  other  a  St.  John.  These  ideals  are  what  he  sees 
and  loves. 


IDEAL  AIMS  95 

Brother  scholars,  it  is  my  faith  and  joy  to  believe 
that  I  am  standing  in  the  presence  of  hidden  ideals 
of  the  Infinite  Mind  more  precious  to  Him  than 
words  can  tell.  I  know  that  over  and  above  all  you 
are  planning  and  working  to  do  for  yourselves,  God 
by  wondrous  strokes  and .  mysterious  influences  is 
working  upon  you  and  raising  you  up  to  His  own 
ideal. 

You  and  I  may  not  be  able  to  see  how  this  work  is 
going  on  for  it  is  hidden  from  human  eyes.  It  is 
said  that  when  Michael  Angelo  was  decorating  the 
Sistine  Chapel,  the  Pope  demanded  that  the  scaffold- 
ing should  be  taken  down  that  he  might  know  what 
was  being  wrought,  for  he  declared  that  he  could  see 
nothing  but  boards  and  ropes,  lime  and  mortar  and 
dust.  But  the  great  artist  heeded  neither  his  en- 
treaties nor  his  threats  but  toiled  on  silently  and 
patiently  by  day  and  by  night,  week  after  week, 
month  after  month,  bringing  out  his  wondrous  crea- 
tions until  the  work  was  done.  Then  when  all  things 
were  finished  he  gave  the  order  and  the  workmen  came 
and  the  scaffolding  was  removed,  and  behind  it  was 
as  if  one  saw  the  heavens  opened  and  looked  into 
the  New  Jerusalem.  So  with  God's  work  on  human 
souls.  The  scaffolding  is  kept  up  tmtil  the  work  is 
done,  until  the  finished  ideal  is  ready  to  shine  out  in 
perfect  characters,  to  the  glory  and  delight  of  the 
Great  Artist. 


GOD'S  SELF-GIVEN  NAME. 

"And  God  said  unto  Moses,  I  am  that  I  am:  and  he  said, 
Thus  shalt  thou  say  unto  the  children  of  Israel,  I  am  hath  sent 
me  unto  you. ' '    Exodus  3 :  14. 

I  do  not  take  this  self-declaration  of  the  Infinite 
and  Eternal  One  for  our  thought  this  morning  be- 
cause I  seem  to  myself  to  have  comprehended  the 
measure  of  its  meaning  and  to  be  unable  to  show 
you  all  there  is  in  it.  No  man  can  show  all  there  is 
in  any  name  of  God.  It  would  not  be  a  name  of 
God  if  he  could.  And  this  above  other  divine  names 
is  inexplicable  because  it  is  essential  in  character, 
because  it  refers  not  to  any  attitude  or  relation  of 
God  to  others,  but  to  His  own  inner  nature.  It  goes 
above  and  beyond  what  God  is  to  the  universe,  above 
and  beyond  what  he  is  to  our  souls.  It  describes  what 
God  is  in  Himself,  what  He  was  in  His  solitary  self- 
sufficing  eternity  before  we  had  any  souls  to  be  lost 
or  saved,  what  He  would  continue  to  be  though  the 
whole  universe   and  every   finite   spirit  in   it   were 


Preached  in  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  Binghamton  (date 
not  ^iven);  also  in  these  churches:  First  Congregational,  First 
Baptist,  West  Presbyterian,  Binghamton:  Second  Presbyterian 
and  Green  Ridge  Presbyterian,  Scranton;  First  Presbyterian  and 
Westminster  Presbyterian,  Buffalo:  Presbyterian,  Afton,  N.  Y.: 
Park  Presbyterian,  Syracuse:  Presbyterian,  Coventry.  N.  Y.;  First 
Presbyterian,  Cortland,  N.  Y.:  Presbyterian,  Waverly,  N.  Y.;  Central 
Presbyterian,  Rochester,  1886;  Central  Presbyterian,  Denver,  1890: 
Immanuel  Presbyterian,  Milwaukee,  1890;  Presbyterian,  Owego,  N. 
Y.,  1891:  First  Presbyterian,  Rochester,  1891;  New  York  Avenue 
Presbyterian,  Washington,  D.  C,  1893':  Westminster  Presbyterian, 
Utica,  1892;  First  Presbyterian,  Englewood,  N.  J.,  1898;  Central 
Presbyterian,  Denver,  1898;  United  Presbyterian  Mission,  Cairo, 
Egypt,  1899;  First  Presbyterian,  Evanston,  111.,  1901;  Presbyterian, 
Conklin,  N.  Y.,  1903;  First  Presbyterian,  Elmira,  N.  Y.,  1903. 

96 


GOD'S   SELF-GIVEN  NAME  97 

turned  back  into  the  abyss  of  nothingness.  It  is  a 
very  great  and  mysterious  name.  And  I  do  not  know 
that  I  should  try  to  approach  it  did  I  not  feel  that 
being  a  name  which  God  has  given  to  Himself  and 
a  name  by  which  He  told  Moses  He  desires  to  be 
known  amongst  all  generations  of  men,  it  must 
therefore  contain  the  deepest  practical  lesson  which 
the  human  heart  has  to  learn.  Let  us  then  think 
a  while  over  this  self-given  name  of  God.  The  more 
we  think  upon  it,  if  we  think  aright,  the  more  we 
shall  be  at  once  humbled  and  exalted,  humbled  in 
our  outer  self-consciousness,  exalted  in  our  inner 
God-consciousness,  raised  in  spirit  and  thrown  upon 
the  knees  in  the  body. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  to  begin  with,  that  we  do 
not  know  how  to  pronounce  correctly  the  self-given 
name  of  God.  We  only  know  that  the  pronunciation  we 
have  is  incorrect.  We  pronounce  it  as  we  find  it  writ- 
ten in  the  Hebrew  Bible,  Jehovah.  But  the  Jews  never 
wrote  it  correctly.  They  held  it  a  capital  crime  for 
any  person  to  do  so.  Only  the  High  Priest,  and  he 
but  once  a  year,  might  rightly  pronounce  the  self- 
given  name  of  God.  For  the  rest  the  scribes  wrote  it 
and  the  people  pronounced  it  by  taking  the  vowel 
sounds  of  another  name  of  God  and  uniting  them 
with  the  radicals  of  this  name.  And  so  the  true 
pronunciation  is  lost  and  never  can  be  authoritatively 
fixed. 

What  has  been  said  of  the  pronunciation  of  this 
Name  may  almost  be  said  of  its  meaning.    There  is  a 


98  GOD'S   SELF-GIVEN  NAME 

meaning,  a  circle  of  clear  intelligible  meaning,  but 
surrounding  that  is  another  larger  circle  of  vague- 
ness and  inexplicable  mystery.  The  Name  is  formed 
from  the  first  person  singular  of  the  present  tense 
of  the  substantive  verb,  I  am.  And  this  is  amplified 
into  I  AM  THAT  I  AM.  Now  here  is  a  starting  point 
of  definiteness.  I  am,  as  I  hope  to  show  you  before 
I  sit  down,  is  the  beginning  of  a  profound  and  far- 
reaching  suggestion.  It  starts  out  with  a  wondrous 
sweep  as  if  it  were  going  to  be  a  great  revelation, 
then  suddenly,  after  one  dazzling  gleam,  it  hides  itself 
behind  a  cloud  of  deeper  obscurity  than  ever. 
"Whether  we  understand  I  am  that  I  am  as  equiva- 
lent to  I  am  what  I  must  be,  or  I  am  what  I  have  ever 
been,  or  I  am  what  I  have  pledged  myself  to  be,  it 
matters  little  in  point  of  meaning.  In  any  under- 
standing of  it,  it  is  an  expression  going  out  in  vague 
and  boundless  mystery.  What  if  it  had  so  to  go 
out,  what  if  no  word,  no  human  speech,  could  con- 
tain all  that  Jehovah  is  and  all  that  He  wishes  to 
be  to  those  who  love  and  serve  Him?  "What  if  I  am 
THAT  I  AM  were  really  a  truer,  more  accurate  ex- 
pression of  the  infinite  largeness  of  God's  mind  and 
heart  than  any  more  definite  description  of  Him  could 
possibly  be?  When  Manoah  asked  after  the  name  of 
the  angel  of  the  Lord,  his  thought  was  at  once 
estopped  and  greatly  elevated  by  the  answer,  ''"Why 
askest  thou  after  my  name,  seeing  that  it  is  wonder- 
ful?" It  is  a  great  thing  for  us  to  learn  that  God 
is  larger  than  our  ideas  of  Him.    We  talk  about  God 


GOD'S   SELF-GIVEN  NAME  99 

so  often  and  so  familiarly  that  we  think  we  under- 
stand Him  quite  well.  But  the  truth  is  that  what 
we  know  about  God,  greater  and  better  than  all  our 
other  knowledge  as  it  is,  is  almost  nothing  at  all  com- 
pared with  what  we  do  not  know  about  Him.  Teach 
a  child  the  alphabet,  show  him  how  to  spell  out  some 
small  words,  and  how  much  does  he  then  know  of  the 
riches  and  resources  of  the  English  language  as 
spread  out  upon  the  pages  of  Shakespeare  and  Bacon 
and  DeQuincey  and  Ruskin?  Give  a  person  the  first 
lessons  in  music,  teach  him  to  strike  the  notes  of  the 
gamut,  and  what  is  his  conception  of  the  heights  and 
depths,  the  powers  and  possibilities  of  harmonious 
sound  contained  in  the  compositions  of  Mozart  and 
Beethoven  and  Sebastian  Bach?  What  we  know  about 
God,  what  we  know  about  any  nearest  attribute  of 
His  being.  His  omnipresence.  His  eternity,  His  mercy 
is  but  the  least  and  lowest  part  of  what  that  attribute 
is.  It  is  a  necessity  of  the  case  that  every  Name  of 
God  should  terminate  in  vagueness  and  mystery.  His 
Name  like  Himself  must  be  enfolded  in  clouds  and 
darkness. 

But  as  I  said  there  is  a  starting  point  of  definite- 
ness  here.  I  am  is  a  word  of  clear  intelligible  mean- 
ing. It  implies  first  of  all  existence,  independent, 
self-contained  existence.  It  is  equivalent  to  saying,  *'I 
exist  neither  by  creation  or  by  derivation.  I  receive 
life  from  nothing.  I  have  it  inherently,  independ- 
ently, originally.  Myself  am  life  and  the  giver  of  it 
to  all  things."    You  and  I,  my  friends,  if  we  weigh 


100  GOD'S   SELF-GIVEN  NAME 

our  words,  cannot  say  I  am  and  add  nothing  more 
to  it.  "We  can  say  I  am  this  or  that,  I  am  a  man, 
I  am  a  woman,  I  am  a  child,  or  I  am  a  lawyer,  I  am 
a  merchant,  I  am  a  mechanic.  "We  can  say,  I  am  born, 
I  am  created,  I  am  preserved.  In  other  words,  I  am 
dependently,  I  am  permissively,  I  am  conditionally. 
But  to  say,  I  am,  simply  meaning  what  the  words 
mean,  separate,  solitary,  self-sufficing  existence,  we 
dare  not.  But  because  God  is  all  contained  in  Him- 
self, because  His  existence  is  His  own  root  and  crown, 
because  He  is  uncreated  existence  and  another  exist- 
ence is  His  gift,  therefore  from  His  lips  can  go  forth 
the  sublime  words  I  am. 

But  again  I  am  implies  eternal  existence.  In  our 
human  grammars  the  verb  of  existence  passes  through 
three  stages  of  time.  We  say  of  ourselves,  I  am,  I 
was,  I  shall  be.  But  God's  being  can  not  be  con- 
jugated. He  passes  through  no  stages  of  succession. 
To  him  there  is  nothing  gone,  nothing  to  come,  "no 
varied  future  yet  unlived,  no  lapse  of  buried  past.'* 
To  Him  there  is  no  I  was,  no  I  shall  be.  He  knows 
but  one  tense,  the  all-including  eternal  present.  He 
therefore,  and  He  alone  can  say  I  am. 

TJnchangeableness  is  another  fact  contained  in  this 
Name.  I  am  what  I  am  has  a  tone  of  immutability 
about  it  that  strikes  the  ear  as  it  falls.  It  seems  to 
say  *'I  am  far  above  that  temporary,  changeful,  un- 
certain state  of  being  in  which  you  exist  and  of  which 
you  are  often  so  weary,  that  state  in  which  minds 
are  fickle,  hearts  inconstant  and  nought  doth  endure 


GOD'S   SELF-GIVEN  NAME  101 

but  mutability.  I  change  not.  The  law  of  ebb  and 
flow  is  outside  of  my  being.  There  is  no  altering 
my  nature,  no  increasing  or  decreasing  my  perfec- 
tions, no  varying  my  thoughts,  feelings,  purposes. 

'Change  finds  no  likeness  to  itself  in  me 
And  makes  no  echo  in  my  full  eternity. ' 

I  am  what  I  have  been  and  ever  must  be,  the  same 
yesterday,  to-day  and  forever." 

Here  I  pause  a  moment  to  express  what  I  am  sure 
must  be  your  feeling  as  well  as  mine  in  view  of  these 
great  truths  of  God  which  have  now  passed  before  us. 
I  pause  to  express  my  satisfaction  and  comfort  that 
there  is  an  infinite,  eternal,  unchangeable  Being  in 
this  universe  and  that  He  has  cared  to  speak  to  you 
and  to  me.  He,  the  I  am,  the  Self-  Evident  One,  who 
needs  no  one  and  nothing,  has  stooped  from  His 
throne  in  Heaven  to  tell  you  and  me  and  millions 
of  mankind  about  Himself.  He  wishes  us  human 
beings  to  know  who  He  is.  He  wishes,  shall  I  say  it, 
to  raise  us  up  from  the  death  of  sin  and  the  transitori- 
ness  of  earth  to  participation  in  His  own  eternal 
life  of  perfect  righteousness  and  perfect  blessedness. 

''O  thou  art  very  great, 
To  set  thyself  so  far  above; 
But  we  partake  of  Thine  estate 
Established  in  Thy  strength  and  in  Thy  love: 
That  love  hath  made  eternal  room  for  me 
In  the  sweet  vastness  of  its  own  eternity. ' ' 

But  we  have  not  yet  reached  the  summit  of  the 
mysterious  Name.    We  have  one  more  ascent  to  climb. 


102  GOD'S   SELF-GIVEN  NAME 

The  personality  of  God  is  really  the  highest  point  of 
significance  here.  What  is  personality?  Something 
more  than  being.  Not  every  being  is  a  person.  But 
every  self-conscious,  self-determined  being,  every 
being  that  thinks  and  feels  and  acts  out  of  a  sense 
of  freedom  is  a  person.  Self-consciousness,  intelli- 
gence and  freedom  of  will,  these  constitute  person- 
ality. But  there  is  a  shorter  method  of  testing  per- 
sonality than  the  analytical  one.  Any  being  that  can 
use  the  personal  pronoun  "I"  or  be  properly  ad- 
dressed as  'Hhou"  is  a  person.  God  is  such  a  being. 
He  can  say  in  the  fullest  meaning  of  the  terms  I  am. 
My  brothers,  God  is  not  an  immense  vagueness,  not 
a  vast  web  of  natural  laws,  not  a  flow  of  blind  in- 
stinctive force  universally  diffused  without  head  or 
heart.  God  is  a  self-conscious  Brain,  a  self-determined 
Will,  a  throbbing  Heart.  God  is  a  Thinker,  a  Seer,  a 
Hearer,  a  Lover,  a  Hater.  God  is  a  living  Person, 
a  moral  Governor,  a  pitying  Father,  a  holy  Judge. 
You  cannot  read  a  chapter  in  the  Bible  without  re- 
ceiving a  distinct  impression  of  the  moral  person- 
ality of  God ;  you  cannot  turn  a  leaf  in  your  own  con- 
science. Why  is  it  that  when  you  have  done  right 
you  feel  strong  though  all  men  scowl  and  hiss  ?  Why 
is  it  that  when  you  have  done  wrong  you  feel  re- 
sponsible not  only  to  yourself  and  your  fellow  men 
but  to  Something  or  Someone  beside?  Who  and 
what  is  that  mysterious  Power  that  holds  you  to  the 
obligation  of  doing  right  and  forces  a  moral  judg- 
ment upon  every  one  of  your  acts?     Is  it  a  law,  is 


GOD'S   SELF-GIVEN  NAME  103 

it  an  idealized  abstraction,  is  it  anything  uncon- 
scious or  semi-conscious  ?  No,  my  brother,  you  cannot 
feel  a  sense  of  shame  and  guilt  before  electricity,  or 
before  a  tree,  or  before  a  bird.  Nothing  less  than  a 
person,  a  holy  person,  can  lay  His  hand  on  the  in- 
most springs  of  your  being  and  make  you  strong  or 
weak,  happy  or  unhappy,  by  His  approval  or  disap- 
proval. 

And  not  only  conscience  and  the  Bible  bear  witness 
to  the  moral  personality  of  God.  The  created 
universe  itself  flashes  the  divine  reality  in  our  faces 
on  every  side.  ''How  do  you  know,"  a  Bedouin  was 
asked,  ''that  there  is  a  personal  God?"  "In  the 
same  way  that  I  know  on  looking  at  the  sand  whether 
a  man  or  a  beast  has  crossed  the  desert,  by  the  foot- 
prints in  the  world  around  me."  Look  at  the  up- 
turned faces  in  this  sanctuary  this  morning,  look 
at  these  shadows  of  immortal  images,  these  homes 
of  conscious  intelligence,  palpitating  thought,  pas- 
sionate affection,  lofty  aspiration.  He  who  made 
these  thought-flashing  faces,  does  He  not  think?  He 
who  formed  these  over-full  hearts,  does  He  not  feel? 
He  who  created  these  living  men  and  women  and 
endowed  them  with  intelligence,  love,  courage,  ideal- 
ity, moral  perception,  does  He  not  possess  the  powers 
which  He  has  bestowed? 

I  am  amazed  that  some  men,  some  scientific  men, 
who  find  this  universe  so  full  of  thought  and  beauty 
and  marvellous  intelligence,  cannot  find  an  intelligent 
Maker  of  it.    And  yet  I  partly  understand  it.    They 


104  GOD'S   SELF-GIVEN  NAME 

are  so  fascinated  by  the  law,  the  order,  the  harmony, 
the  manifold  variety  and  the  infinite  adaptation  of 
God's  works  of  creation  that  their  minds  are  com- 
pletely absorbed  in  the  work  and  lost  to  the  Worker. 
In  their  admirations  of  His  footprints  they  lose  sight 
of  the  divine  Traveler  Himself  whose  trail  they  are 
following. 

And  so  the  biologist  spends  laborious  days  and 
weary  nights  in  turning  the  leaves  of  the  book  of 
physical  life  and  deciphering  its  contents  and  then 
tells  us  as  the  result  of  his  research  that  physical  life 
is  the  product  of  blind  development.  As  if  a  book 
which  only  the  best  heads  can  read  had  been  written 
by  no  head  at  all,  but  only  by  matter  and  force  work- 
ing in  natural  selection.  And  so  the  star-eyed 
astronomer  turns  his  telescope  to  the  heavens  and  sees 
a  majestic  order,  planets  circling  about  suns,  systems 
revolving  around  systems,  all  moving  in  perfect  regu- 
larity in  their  prodigious  pathways.  He  sees  this 
kosmos  of  wonder  and  beauty  and  power,  but  sees  no 
mind  creating  and  controlling  it.  And  yet  that  same 
man  cannot  examine  a  theory  of  the  heavens,  cannot 
look  at  a  picture,  cannot  read  a  poem,  without  seeing 
in  it  the  work  of  a  personal  intelligence.  The  discov- 
eries of  Isaac  Newton,  the  creations  of  Raphael,  the 
conceptions  of  Dante,  he  knows  could  only  come  from 
a  mind.  But  Isaac  Newton  and  Raphael  and  Dante 
themselves  together  with  all  that  inspired  and  in- 
formed them  he  thinks  might  come  from  nothing  but 
chance  and  clay. 


GOD'S   SELF-GIVEN  NAME  105 

My  friends,  the  thought  we  are  now  considering  is 
an  intensely  practical  one.    If  God  be  nothing  more 
than  the  -unconscious  soul   of  the  universe   or  the 
nexus  of  laws  by  which  the  universe  is  governed,  then 
all  acts  of  religious  worship  such  as  are  paid  in  this 
sanctuary  from  Sunday  to  Sunday  are  simply  farci- 
cal.    We  may  as  well  spare  ourselves  the  folly  of 
praying  to  a  deaf  and  dumb  principle.     Our  creeds 
and  confessions,  our  ascriptions  and  doxologies,  are  no 
more  to  such  a  God  than  the  sound  of  the  winds  or 
the  murmur  of  the  ocean.     Our  tears,  tears  of  peni- 
tence, tears  of  sorrow,  are  just  like  drops  of  sap  exud- 
ing from  a  wounded  tree.    But  if  God  be  a  living  in- 
telligence and  almighty  heart,  if  He  be  our  Father 
in  heaven,  of  whose  boundless  truth  and  love  and  ten- 
derness all  earthly  fatherhood  is  but  an  image  and  a 
token,  then  praise  is  comely.    We  may  make  a  joyful 
noise  before  Him  in  the  day  of  thanksgiving,  for  He 
hears  us.    We  may  cry  to  Him  out  of  the  depths,  for 
He  has  a  heart  that  can  feel  our  pain  and  a  hand  that 
can  deliver  us  out  of  all  our  trouble. 

Again,  it  is  from  the  conviction  of  a  personal  God 
that  all  earnest  human  work  takes  its  highest  stimulus 
and  motive  power.  When  the  belief  in  a  personal 
God  goes  out  of  a  man,  every  high  resolution,  every 
heroic  impulse,  every  fine  enthusiasm,  every  fresh  in- 
spiration goes  out  with  it  or  close  behind  it.  And 
why  should  they  not?  No  invisible  eye  watches  him, 
no  sympathizing  heart  nerves  him,  no  guerdon  awaits 
his  noble  deed.    Life  has  no  responsibility,  prayer  no 


106  GOD'S   SELF-GIVEN  NAME 

spring,  duty  no  recognition.  The  present  is  a  pur- 
poseless existence  and  the  future  a  hopeless  blank. 
"What  is  left  for  such  a  person  but  to  eat  and  drink 
and  die? 

But  let  a  man  be  thoroughly  convinced  that  a  per- 
sonal Being  has  placed  him  in  this  world  and  that 
he  has  a  heaven-appointed  work  to  do,  let  him  be  per- 
suaded that  above  all  that  is  dark  and  inexplicable 
and  sad  there  sits  supreme  an  all-wise,  almighty,  and 
all-merciful  Being,  who  watches  him,  loves  him,  guides 
him  and  is  intent  upon  leading  him  onward  and  up- 
ward, and  if  there  be  any  spirit  and  efficiency  in  the 
man  it  will  be  stirred  and  empowered. 

''Men  have  always  toiled  best,''  says  Peter  Bayne, 
''and  fought  best  when  moved  by  impulses  holding 
from  the  Infinite. ' '  It  was  when  amid  the  battle  dust 
around  Antioch  or  moving  along  the  slopes  of  Olivet 
the  worn  crusader  caught  the  gleam  of  celestial 
helms  that  he  became  irresistible.  It  was  by  the  faith 
of  a  personal  God  that  Luther  defied  Eome,  that  Gus- 
tavus  Adolphus  poured  out  his  great  heart  for  his 
country's  freedom,  that  the  Puritans  fought  at 
Naseby  and  founded  a  New  England  on  these  in- 
hospitable shores.  "I  am  hath  sent  me  unto  you," 
said  Moses  to  the  Hebrews  in  Goshen.  They  were  not 
Swiss  patriots,  not  the  countrymen  of  William  Tell 
and  Arnold  Winkelried  whom  he  was  addressing. 
They  were  poor  ignorant  down-trodden  broken-spir- 
ited slaves,  and  yet  they  followed  him  through  the 
cloven     surges,    through    the    howling    wilderness, 


GOD'S   SELF-GIVEN  NAME  107 

whithersoever  he  listed.  That  Presence  in  the  Cloud 
by  day  and  in  the  fiery  Pillar  by  night,  that  om- 
nipotent I  AM  drew  them  and  drave  them,  impelled 
them  and  made  an  immortal  nation  of  them. 

Finally  it  is  the  fact  that  God  is  a  personal  Being 
that  satisfies  the  deepest  want  of  man's  heart.  I 
seem  to  see  before  me  what  I  saw  the  other  day,  a 
husband  bending  in  anguish  over  the  remains  of  his 
best  beloved  one.  They  have  lived  together  a  few 
happy  years.  His  heart  has  grown  purer  and  better 
every  day  in  her  sweet  society.  All  his  earthly  joy 
was  in  the  sunshine  of  her  smile.  And  now  she  lies 
before  him  cold,  pale,  silent,  the  lingering  lines  of 
beauty  not  yet  effaced  from  lip  and  brow.  In  this 
hour  of  mortal  anguish  what  does  this  poor  man's 
heart  and  flesh  cry  out  for?  It  cries  out  for  God,  for 
the  living  personal  God.  And  when  the  personal  God, 
hearing  his  prayer,  puts  an  immortal  hope  in  his 
heart  and  he  sees  the  heavens  opened  and  beholds  his 
darling  alive,  and  more  alive  than  ever,  in  that  in- 
finite Home,  then  his  heart  is  overshadowed  by  im- 
mortal love  and  his  agony  changes  to  peace.  0  my 
brothers,  the  heart  craves  a  heart,  a  Person,  an  al- 
mighty Friend.  It  craves  a  seeing  Eye,  a  hearing 
Ear,  a  living  Breast  upon  which  it  may  at  last  lay 
its  weary  head  and  fall  asleep  like  a  child  in  its 
mother's  arms.    The  heart  wants  a  personal  God. 

Here  I  pause.  We  have  considered  the  self-given 
Name  of  God.  We  have  heard  Him  say  I  am.  But 
what  He  is  He  does  not  further  say.     It  is  interest- 


108  GOD'S   SELF-GIVEN  NAME 

ing  to  inquire  whether  He  has  ever  finished  His  sen- 
tence. The  New  Testament  answers.  Jesus  Christ 
connects  Himself  distinctly  in  so  many  words  with 
this  mysterious  Name.  ^ '  Before  Abraham  was,  I  am. ' ' 
And  so  the  unfinished  revelation  finds  its  completion 
in  Bethlehem  and  Calvary  and  Christ.  The  great 
ladder  whose  top  is  above  the  stars  touches  also  every 
thing  that  has  strength  and  beauty,  truth  and  ten- 
derness. 

Now  I  find  Christ  taking  all  beauteous  objects  and 
saying  I  am  this  and  that.  I  am  the  Vine,  I  am  the 
Rose  and  the  Lily,  I  am  the  Light  and  the  Morning 
Star,  I  am  the  Rock  and  the  River  of  Life,  I  am  the 
Shepherd,  the  Prince,  the  King.  Thus  is  Jesus  Christ 
the  completed  revelation,  the  unveiled  glory  of  God 
in  all  things.  Nay  more,  I  find  Jesus  Christ  taking 
all  humble  believing  human  souls  and  saying,  I  am 
Abraham's,  I  am  Moses',  I  am  David's,  I  am  Isaiah's, 
I  am  Paul's,  I  am  John's,  I  am  every  believing 
man's,  every  saintly  woman's,  every  trustful  child's. 
Thus  is  Jesus  Christ  not  only  the  completed  revela- 
tion, the  unveiled  glory  of  God  in  all  things,  but  the 
personal  Saviour  and  everlasting  possessor  of  you  and 
of  me. 

* '  And  what  though  earth  and  sea  His  glory  do  proclaim, 
Though  on  the  stars  is  writ  that  great  and  dreadful  Name, 
Yea,  hear  me,  Son  of  Man,  with  tears  my  eyes  are  dim, 
I  cannot  read  the  word  that  calls  me  close  to  Him! 
I  say  it  after  Thee  with  faltering  voice  and  weak, 
The  Name  of  Jesus  Christ,  this  Name  I  trust  and  seek." 


THE  OLD  PATHS. 

"Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Stand  ye  in  the  ways,  and  see,  and 
ask  for  the  old  paths,  where  is  the  good  way,  and  walk  therein, 
and  ye  shall  find  rest  for  your  souls."     Jeremiah  6:  16. 

We  have  assembled  here  to-day,  my  friends,  to 
dedicate  this  house  to  the  worship  and  service  of  Al- 
mighty God,  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  to  the  teaching  of  the  blessed  Gospel  of  our  Lord 
and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ.  I  do  not  know  of  any 
precept  in  the  New  Testament  which  expressly  en- 
joins the  performance  of  these  dedicatory  rites.  It 
is  deeply,  divinely  implanted  in  our  nature,  it  is  a 
moral  instinct,  that  a  structure  designed  for  high 
superearthly  uses  should  be  consecrated  to  the  pur- 
pose for  which  it  was  reared  by  special  religious  cere- 
monies. "We  do  not  expect  by  these  ceremonies  to 
confer  any  magical  virtue  upon  these  walls  or  to 
communicate  any  singular  efficacy  to  the  acts  and 
offices  which  shall  hereafter  be  performe(J  within 
them.     In  the  Middle  Ages  there  grew  up,  like  the 


Preached  at  the  dedications  of  the  new  building  of  the  First 
Presbyterian  Church,  Cortland,  N.  Y.,  1890,  and  of  the  rebuilt 
First  Baptist  Church,  Bin^hamton,  1891.  Without  the  introduc- 
tion referring*  to  the  dedication,  this  sermon  was  preached  in  Im- 
manuel  Presbyterian  Church,  Milwaukee,  1872;  also  in  these 
churches:  Presbyterian,  Waukesha,  Wis.,  and  Manitowoc,  Wis.; 
First  Presbyterian,  Binghamton,  1884;  Central  Presbyterian, 
Rochester,  1884;  Central  Presbyterian,  Denver,  1888;  Presbyterian, 
Union,  N.  Y.,  1888;  First  Presbyterian,  1890;  First  Presbyterian, 
Rochester,  1891;  Second  Presbyterian,  Scranton,  1891;  Presbyterian, 
Owego,  N.  Y.,  1897;  Central  Presbyterian,  Denver,  1898;  First 
Presbyterian,  Wilkes-Barre,  1898. 

109 


110  THE  OLD  PATHS 

ivy  on  its  walls,  mythical  stories  about  the  history 
of  almost  every  statelier  church.  It  is  often  related 
how  after  long  meditation  the  plan  of  the  edifice 
was  at  length  projected  before  some  gifted  person's 
vision  in  lines  of  light,  or  found  traced  in  the  de- 
scending dew  upon  the  sparkling  sward  from  which 
the  fabric  was  to  rise.  "We  do  not  claim  any  such 
supernatural  prefigurement  of  the  architecture  of 
this  building  marking  its  inception,  nor  do  we  ex- 
pect to  call  down  any  mysterious  properties  of  heaven 
upon  its  completion.  At  the  same  time  we  do  recog- 
nize in  this  sanctuary  something  that  remove  it  from 
all  other  buildings  and  places  it  on  an  eminence. 
We  recognize  a  high  holy  intention  on  the  part  of  its 
builders,  an  inestimable  far-reachdng  value  in  its 
uses,  more  distinctly  and  devoutly  we  recognize  a 
greatness  and  a  sanctity  which  no  elevation  of  ma- 
terial architecture  can  ever  reach,  derived  from  the 
august  character  and  promised  occupancy  of  Him  by 
whose  blessing  the  house  has  been  erected  and  to 
whose  service  and  glory  it  is  now  to  be  set  apart. 

I  have  said  that  this  house  is  to  be  dedicated  to  the 
preaching  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  But  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  is  preached  in  different  forms.  Be- 
sides the  well-known  religious  denominations  which 
divide  Christendom  among  themselves  are  various 
views,  lights,  doctrines,  interpretations  and  illumina- 
tions which  claim  to  be  new  discoveries  or  higher 
developments  of  the  truth  given  us  in  Jesus  Christ. 
It  becomes  necessary   therefore  to   be   definite   and 


THE  OLD  PATHS  111 

point  out  the  particular  interpretation  of  the  Gospel 
that  is  to  be  taught  in  this  place. 

Extending  from  the  Holy  Apostles  down  to  the 
present  time  is  one  unbroken  line  of  believers  and 
witnesses,  one  marvelous  unity  of  belief  and  confes- 
sion, one  great  comprehensive  system  of  truth  which 
differs  from  all  other  views  in  the  profound  impres- 
sion it  has  ever  made  upon  the  world,  in  the  tran- 
scendent importance  which  it  attaches  to  religion  and 
in  its  unchanging  indestructible  invincible  persistence. 
Called  sometimes  Pauline  Christianity,  sometimes 
Augustinianism,  sometimes  Calvinism,  sometimes 
Presbyterianism,  it  is  in  fact  the  system  of  the  doc- 
trines of  Divine  Grace  by  which  man  is  rescued  from 
a  great  and  awful  perdition  to  a  great  and  everlast- 
ing salvation  by  a  great  and  divine  Redeemer.  To  these 
doctrines  which  have  been  the  faith  of  the  Holy  Catho- 
lic Church  from  the  beginning  until  now,  in  the  belief 
of  which  lived  and  died  Paul,  Clement,  Augustine, 
Anselm,  Bernard,  Luther,  Calvin,  Pascal,  Hooker, 
Edwards  and  Chalmers,  to  these  sublime  unearthly 
doctrines  of  sovereign  omnipotent  Grace  and  to  the 
Gospel  interpreted  in  harmony  with  them  we  dedi- 
cate this  building. 

And  it  has  seemed  to  me  fitting  that  the  great 
truths  which  are  to  dominate  the  thinking  and  teach- 
ing of  this  place  should  be  the  topic  of  my  discourse 
on  this  occasion.  Accordingly  I  am  to  speak  to  you 
this  afternoon  on  what  my  text  calls  the  old  paths 
in  religion — ''Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Stand  ye  in  the 


112  THE  OLD  PATHS 

ways,  and  see,  and  ask  for  the  old  paths,  where  is  the 
good  way,  and  walk  therein,  and  ye  shall  find  rest 
for  your  souls/' 

We  are  frequently  meeting  with  persons  who  have 
grown  tired  of  the  old  paths,  who  are  turning  away 
from  them  and  eagerly  lookiag  for  some  new  and 
better  way.  Such  persons  are  generally  impressed 
with  the  idea  that  great  advancements  have  been 
made  or  are  soon  to  be  made  in  the  matter  of  religion. 
They  confidently  anticipate  a  vast  increase  of  light 
and  knowledge  in  the  sphere  of  religious  thought. 
They  fully  expect  that  great  and  important  discov- 
eries are  about  to  be  made  in  it.  It  is  thought  by  some 
that  we  are  even  now  upon  the  edge  of  a  new  dawn, 
that  a  brighter  sky  is  already  lifting  and  widening 
and  purpling  above  us,  and  that  the  idea  of  progress 
in  religion,  so  far  from  being  a  vain  and  hurtful 
thought  to  cherish,  is  a  first  necessity  of  every  earnest 
and  highly  gifted  soul. 

This  is  not  strange.  We  live  in  an  age  of  improve- 
ments. Especially  in  physical  science  and  the  useful 
arts  has  the  present  century  ushered  in  a  prodigious 
train  of  brilliant  discoveries.  The  spirit  of  the  cen- 
tury is  a  spirit  of  progress,  and  no  one  at  all  familiar 
with  the  history  and  phases  of  thought  but  knows  the 
silent  and  subtle  power  of  the  spirit  of  an  age  to 
pervade  and  color  the  thinking  of  that  age  even  in 
matters  which  it  had  no  part  in  creating  and  never 
can  have  any  in  improving.  So  that  I  do  not  think 
we  need  to  be  surprised  at  seeing  frequent  newspaper 


THE  OLD  PATHS  113 

paragraphs  and  magazine  articles  breathing  the  senti- 
ment which  Augustus  Hare  once  met  with  and  which 
he  answered  vigorously  enough.  "I  met  this  morn- 
ing," he  says,  "with  the  following  sentences,  *An 
upholsterer  now  makes  much  handsomer  furniture 
than  they  made  three  hundred  years  ago.  The  march 
of  mind  is  discernible  in  everything.  Shall  religion 
then  be  the  only  thing  that  continues  wholly  unim- 
proved ? '  What, ' '  he  exclaims  upon  laying  the  paper 
down,  ''does  the  march  of  mind  then  improve  the 
oaks  of  the  forest?  does  it  improve  the  mountains? 
does  it  improve  the  waves  of  the  sea  ?  does  it  improve 
the  sun  and  stars?  The  assertion  is  silly  enough. 
Some  things  we  improve  and  so  we  assume  we  can 
improve  and  are  to  improve  all  things.  As  though  it 
follows  that  because  we  can  mend  a  pen  we  can  with 
the  same  ease  mend  an  eagle's  wing.  As  though  be- 
cause nibbing  the  pen  strengthens  it,  paring  the 
eagle's  wing  must  also  strengthen  that.  People  forget 
what  things  are  progressive  and  what  unprogres- 
sive." 

I  have  quoted  this  passage  from  one  of  the  authors 
of  ''Guesses  at  Truth"  because  it  starts  an  inquiry 
which  underlies  this  whole  matter  of  improvements  in 
religion  and  which  I  mean  to  follow  out  with  some 
thoroughness  at  the  present  time.  The  question  is, 
what  things  does  man  improve,  and  what  are  the 
things  which  attempting  to  improve  he  invariably  per- 
verts? What  are  the  things  in  which  we  may  seek 
and  expect  to  push  out  into  new  and  better  paths. 


114  THE  OLD  PATHS 

and  what  are  the  things  in  which  the  old  paths  show 
the  good  way  and  the  nearer  we  mount  up  to  their 
beginnings  the  purer  the  light  they  yield  us? 

In  the  first  place  there  is  this  distinction  to  be  made. 
Those  things  are  progressive  in  which  knowledge  is 
handed  down  from  one  to  another,  but  those  things 
in  which  each  one  has  to  go  back  and  begin  at  the  be- 
ginning for  himself  have  the  least  element  of  pro- 
gressiveness.  There  are  some  things,  my  friends, 
there  are  many  things  in  which  we  begin  where  those 
before  us  left  off.  Our  fathers  labored  and  we  en- 
tered into  their  labors.  "What  James  Watt  did  for 
the  steam  engine,  what  Arkwright  accomplished  for 
the  sewing  machine,  every  engineer  and  inventor 
now-a-days  takes  as  a  part  of  his  outfit  and  capital 
stock  in  trade.  ' '  A  child  standing  upon  the  shoulders 
of  a  giant  may  easily  see  farther  than  the  giant  him- 
self." The  merest  school  boy  now  stands  upon  the 
shoulders  of  Columbus  who  found  a  new  continent. 
The  most  ordinary  anatomist  sees  farther  than  Har- 
vey who  discovered  the  circulation  of  the  blood.  Our 
first  lesson  in  astronomy  is  the  last  triumph  of  the 
genius  of  Galileo,  who  asserted  the  revolution  of  the 
earth  upon  its  axis.  Where  John  Jacob  Astor  ended 
in  amassing  wealth  there  William  Astor  commenced. 
So  in  physical  science  and  in  useful  arts  we  are  bom 
inheritors  of  the  wealth  of  the  past.  We  have  not  to 
break  up  the  ground,  prepare  the  soil  and  sow  the 
seed  for  ourselves.  We  have  only  to  go  out  and  fill 
our  bosoms  with  the  ripened  sheaves  of  others '  toil. 


THE  OLD  PATHS  115 

The  consequence  is  that  in  all  such  things  we  do 
not  inquire  after  the  old  paths.  The  new  are  better. 
We  improve  upon  the  old.  If  we  wish  to  talk  about 
such  things,  we  know  more  about  geography  than  St. 
Paul,  who  was  caught  up  into  the  third  heaven  and 
saw  and  heard  what  his  mortal  lips  could  never  utter, 
but  who  thought  the  earth  was  no  more  than  a  belt 
of  land  around  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  We  know 
more  about  natural  history  than  the  inspired  Psalmist 
of  Israel,  who  saw  God  and  the  works  of  God's  hands 
and  the  shadow  of  God's  glory  in  everything,  in  cloud 
and  sunlight,  in  mountains  and  in  forest,  in  all  trees 
and  grasses  and  beasts  and  birds,  but  who  could  not 
analyse  a  single  plant  or  answer  the  first  question 
about  classification.  We  know  more  about  the  solar 
system  than  Turretin,  the  father  of  theology,  whose 
spirit  had  wings  like  a  dove  and  knew  well  its  own 
nest  beneath  the  shadow  of  the  Almighty,  but  who 
could  not  bring  himself  to  believe  in  the  axial  revolu- 
tion of  the  earth  because  he  could  not  see  how  the 
birds  could  find  their  way  back  to  their  nests  if  the 
world  were  always  revolving.  Yes,  in  all  these  lines 
of  inherited  knowledge  there  is  progress.  We  are 
wiser  than  our  teachers.  The  newest  ways  are  com- 
monly the  best  ways. 

But  turn  now  to  the  other  and  higher  kinds  of 
knowledge.  Turn  to  those  things  where  each  one 
must  climb  up  to  the  original  springs  of  Truth  and 
Beauty  and  hew  out  his  own  rocky  cup  and  put  his 
lips  to  the  crystal  draught  for  himself.     What  has 


116  THE  OLD  PATHS 

the  march  of  mind  done  for  sculpture  since  the  crea- 
tions of  Phidias  and  Praxiteles?  What  advancement 
has  been  made  in  painting  since  Raphael?  When  is 
our  patent  office  likely  to  record  a  series  of  improve- 
ments upon  the  architecture  of  the  Parthenon  or  of 
St.  Mark's  in  Venice?  What  orator  have  these  two 
thousand  years  produced  able  to  contend  for  mastery 
with  Demosthenes,  what  philosopher  qualified  to  sit 
in  the  chair  of  Plato,  what  poet  worthy  to  stand 
on  the  pedestal  of  Homer?  Are  Shakespeare  and 
Dante,  are  Handel  and  Mozart,  are  Michael  Angelo 
and  Correggio  rapidly  become  outgrown  and  left  be- 
hind, or  are  they  like  the  stars  whose  light  we  enjoy 
but  whose  paths  are  higher  than  we  moderns  can  walk 
in? 

There  are  fields,  my  friends,  over  which  the  much 
vaunted  reign  of  progress  bears  no  sway.  The  march 
of  mind  is  not  discernible  here.  Rather  is  progress 
the  other  way.  The  water  is  purest  at  its  fountains 
among  the  mountains  where  it  gushes  cold  from  the 
rock  or  bubbles  up  at  the  mossy  spring.  So  the  nearer 
we  mount  up  to  the  first  ages  and  fresh  sources  of  a 
nation's  life  and  birth  the  purer  and  more  vigorous 
and  creative  are  its  poets  and  orators  and  artists. 
Accordingly  in  these  things  we  inquire  after  the  old 
paths.  We  reverence  the  old  masters.  We  study 
the  minds  and  copy  the  works  of  ancient  genius.  And 
no  man  having  possessed  himself  of  the  old  straight- 
way desireth  the  new,  for,  he  saith,  the  old  is  better. 
The  reason  for  the  absence  of  progress  here  is  that  in 


THE  OLD  PATHS  117 

these  things  one  age  and  one  man  cannot  stand  upon 
the  shoulders  of  another.  Every  one  must  stand  on 
his  own  feet.  Advancement  is  a  personal  gift  and  no 
man  can  leave  the  secret  of  his  power  to  those  who 
come  after  him.  Not  that  I  think  we  derive  nothing 
from  those  who  have  gone  before  us  in  these  paths. 
We  may  and  do  derive  much.  But  we  may  not  as  in 
science  and  the  useful  arts  we  do,  pour  another's  ripe 
harvest  bodily  into  our  granary.  Whatever  we  take 
must  be  as  inspiration  forces,  as  seed  thoughts  to  be 
planted,  germinated,  and  ripened  in  our  own  soil. 
Each  one  must  lay  his  own  foundation,  build  his 
structure  and  carry  it  to  completion  for  himself. 
And  the  real  secret  of  his  achievement,  the  wonder- 
working gift  of  his  genius,  he  must  carry  back  to  the 
Giver  an  undivulged  mystery. 

I  wish  now  to  point  out  another  and  deeper  line  of 
distinction  between  the  things  we  may  improve  and 
the  things  that  do  not  admit  of  improvement.  All  the 
things  we  may  expect  to  improve  are  such  as  man's 
natural  faculties  are  sufficient  to  find  out  and  carry 
forward,  but  where  the  Lord  God  Almighty  has  shown 
anything  from  heaven,  there  improvements  are  not 
to  be  looked  for.  How  to  till  the  ground,  how  to  de- 
velop mines,  how  to  build  railroads,  how  to  open 
communication  between  land,  how  to  establish  manu- 
factures and  encourage  them,  how  to  buy  and  sell 
merchandise,  how  we  shall  build  our  homes,  increase 
our  property,  educate  our  children — concerning  the 
multitude  of  such  things  as  these  God  has  not  shown 


118  THE  OLD  PATHS 

anything  from  heaven.  He  has  not  set  His  seal  upon 
this  or  that.  He  has  left  the  means  and  methods  of 
these  things  to  be  discovered  and  developed  by  man's 
own  faculties.  There  is  no  '^Thus  saith  the  Lord" 
here.  We  do  not  therefore  follow  the  past  in  these 
things.  We  open  new  and  better  pathways  than  those 
of  the  past  and  we  may  expect  those  who  come  after 
us  to  break  roads  into  unknown  territories  smoother 
and  better  than  ours. 

But  how  to  light  up  a  world  and  beautify  it,  how 
to  distribute  the  waters  and  gather  them  again  in 
one  place,  how  to  guide  Arcturus  and  his  sons  and 
bring  forth  the  seasons  in  their  order,  how  to  create 
life  and  endow  it,  how  to  plant  hearing  in  the  ear  and 
form  the  eye  to  vision,  how  to  crystallize  a  diamond 
and  how  to  round  a  pearl,  how  to  wing  a  butterfly, 
how  to  fasten  a  leaf  and  how  to  color  a  rose,  these  are 
things  which  God  has  spoken.  And  they  remain  right 
where  He  left  them.  Time  does  not  improve  them. 
The  march  of  mind  does  not  affect  them.  The  banners 
of  progress  do  not  draw  them  into  its  procession. 
They  continue  the  same  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion. No  improvement  has  been  made  upon  the  trees 
since  King  David  saw  them  clapping  their  hands  and 
praising  God.  The  midnight  skies  were  not  more 
sublime  last  night  than  when  Abraham  was  led  forth 
into  the  Syrian  night  and  bidden  to  turn  his  gaze 
unto  the  countless  stars  like  which  his  seed  should  be. 

Now,  my  friends,  in  the  light  of  these  two  tests  of 
progressiveness  what  shall  we  think  about  new  dis- 


THE  OLD  PATHS  119 

coveries  and  future  improvements  in  religion?  I 
will  speak  frankly  and  say  that  to  me  they  seem 
simply  impossible.  I  cannot  look  upon  such  discov- 
eries as  anything  more  than  the  will-o'-the-wisps  of 
visionary  brains  and  fatuous  desires.  I  cannot  see 
the  slightest  probability  of  our  knowing  more  about 
religion  than  our  fathers  and  mothers  knew  or  of  the 
next  age  knowing  more  than  we.  Look  at  it  for  your- 
selves. Religion  is  a  personal  thing.  It  is  like  learn- 
ing to  talk  or  to  walk.  Each  man,  whatever  the  age 
in  which  he  lives,  has  to  begin  at  the  beginning  and 
do  the  same  things.  A  hundred  generations  of  holy 
men  may  have  gone  before  him,  but  the  way  of  holi- 
ness is  made  none  the  shorter,  none  the  easier  for  him 
by  that.  He  has  to  come  to  God,  root  out  sin  and  do 
the  first  things  all  the  same.  He  has  to  begin  exactly 
where  they  began,  climb  every  hill  of  difficulty  and 
go  over  the  whole  ground  for  himself.  His  part  is 
just  the  same  as  if  he  were  the  first  man  in  the  world. 
In  short,  religion  is  emphatically  one  of  those  things 
where  each  one  must  begin,  go  on  and  end  for  him- 
self. 

And  then  besides,  religion  is  the  gift  of  God  from 
heaven  and  therefore  incapable  of  improvement.  I 
do  not  know  why  it  is  not  quite  as  reasonable  to 
look  in  the  eastern  sky  for  a  new  sun  or  an  improved 
sun  as  to  look  for  any  other  source  of  light  and  power 
than  Jesus  Christ  whom  God  has  ordained.  I  do 
not  know  why  there  is  not  as  much  likelihood  of  some- 
one arising  with  a  new  way  of  bringing  children  into 


120  THE  OLD  PATHS 

the  world  different  from  birth  as  of  any  different 
entrance  to  heaven  being  discovered  than  that  which 
is  given,  ''Ye  must  be  born  again/'  for  upon  both 
the  Almighty  has  set  His  seal.  So  long  as  the  human 
heart  is  so  constituted  as  to  feel  sorry  for  having 
causelessly  offended  its  best  friend,  and  so  long  as  a 
full  trustful  self-surrender  is  the  highest  homage  a 
human  soul  can  pay  to  any  being,  so  long  will  peni- 
tence and  faith  and  consecration  continue  to  be  the 
unchanging  marks  of  a  true  religious  mind. 

I  said  there  was  no  likelihood  of  our  knowing  more 
about  religion  than  those  who  first  received  it.  I 
ought  to  have  said  there  is  a  strong  probability  of  our 
knowing  less.  Has  it  ever  been  the  part  of  man  to 
improve  God's  gifts?  Has  it  not  always  been  man's 
work  to  obscure  the  light  of  God?  Look  at  the  use 
which  Adam  made  of  God's  gift,  look  at  the  Jews 
and  observe  their  treatment  of  the  perfect  law  of  God 
and  the  living  Son  of  God,  read  the  history  of  Chris- 
tianity after  the  Apostles,  and  see  how  in  every  case 
the  knowledge  of  God  has  fared  in  this  world  like 
a  stream  which  first  flows  pure  and  crystal-like  from 
the  mountains,  grows  turbid  as  it  crosses  the  plain, 
and  finally  loses  itself  in  a  vast  morass.  The  same 
fact  appears  if  we  look  into  our  own  individual  lives 
and  the  use  we  have  made  of  God's  gifts  to  us.  How 
many  a  man  on  this  sanctuary  floor  feels  that  he  was 
nearer  to  God  in  his  childhood  than  he  is  now !  How 
many  a  one  reads  his  own  experience  in  those  touch- 
ing beautiful  lines  of  Wordsworth, 


THE  OLD  PATHS  121 

''Trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 

From  God,  who  is  our  home; 
Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy! 
Shades  of  the  prison-house  begin  to  close 

Upon  the  growing  Boy, 
But  he  beholds  the  light,  and  whence  it  flows, 

He  sees  it  in  his  joy; 
The  Youth,  who  daily  farther  from  the  east 
Must  travel,  still  is  Nature's  Priest, 

And  by  the  vision  splendid 

Is  on  his  way  attended; 
At  length  the  Man  perceives  it  die  away, 
And  fade  into  the  light  of  common  day. ' ' 

Now  my  friends,  if  these  things  be  true,  if  the 
hopes  of  improvements  in  religion  be  deceiving  and 
impossible,  if  clearer  light  and  fresher  revelations 
must  be  sought  by  going  back  to  those  who  first  re- 
ceived it  rather  than  by  expecting  some  great  thing 
in  the  future,  and  if  our  true  distinction  be  not  in 
making  new  discoveries  in  religion  but  in  being  faith- 
ful custodians  of  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints 
and  of  preserving  it  in  new  lives  of  holy  thought  and 
holy  obedience,  then  we  ought  to  know  these  things 
and  adjust  our  minds  to  the  facts.  I  do  not  think 
we  can  ever  be  strong  tranquil  men  and  women  so 
long  as  we  live  in  expectation  of  some  great  thing  to 
be  revealed.  We  shall  be  unsettled,  impatient,  tossed 
to  and  fro  by  every  new  thing.  We  shall  be  incapable 
of  fixing  our  minds  upon  ourselves  and  the  practical 
duties  of  a  holy  life.  Truth  will  be  nothing  unless  it 
excite  new  hopes,  religion  nothing  unless  it  open  new 
expectations.    We  shall  live  in  an  intemperate  state, 


122  THE  OLD  PATHS 

and  like  all  intemperance  our  excitements  will  ever 
promise  to  make  us  rich  and  ever  end  in  making  us 
poor.  But  let  it  once  be  settled  in  our  minds  for  a 
certainty  that  the  circle  of  revealed  truth  is  already 
completed,  that  the  door  is  positively  closed  against  the 
hoping  for  anything  new  until  He  shall  come  who 
will  come,  and  we  shall  begin  at  once  to  look  at  home 
that  we  may  be  found  in  the  right  way  and  prepared 
to  go  forth  and  meet  Him  at  His  coming.  Sweeter 
than  music  to  our  ears  then  will  be  words  like  these 
of  Jeremiah,  ' '  Stand  ye  in  the  ways  and  see,  and  ask 
for  the  old  paths,  where  is  the  good  way, ....  and  ye 
shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls." 

Before  sitting  do^vn  I  wish  to  express  very  briefly  my 
reasons  for  holding  by  the  old  paths.  The  old  confessions 
of  faith,  the  old  promises  of  God,  the  old  Sabbath  usages, 
the  old  sacraments,  the  old  hymns  of  devotion,  the 
old  acts  of  piety,  the  old,  old  story  of  the  Cross, — I 
love  this  old  way  to  heaven,  my  friends,  for  one  thing 
because  it  is  old.  I  love  these  paths  because  they  have 
been  beaten  by  so  many  feet  of  holy  men  who  have 
left  their  vestiges  on  the  way.  Think  what  a  magnifi- 
cent train  of  faithful  witnesses,  what  a  long  proces- 
sion of  triumphant  souls  have  defiled  through 
heaven's  gate  by  this  way — patriarchs  and  prophets, 
holy  apostles  and  palm-bearing  martyrs,  saintly  men 
and  women  and  tender  children  bound  together  link 
to  link,  life  to  life,  generation  to  generation.  As  I 
stand  in  the  ways  and  gaze  steadily  upon  this  sublime 


THE  OLD  PATHS  123 

spectacle  of  century  after  century  moving  through 
the  gates  of  the  City  by  this  way,  the  faces  of  a  few 
derisive  skeptics  and  the  transient  gleam  of  a  few 
phosphorescent  new  lights  melt  from  the  field  of 
vision,  and  the  voice  of  my  soul  and  heart  is,  ''This 
is  the  train  I  would  follow,  this  the  path  I  would 
walk  in." 

Dear  friends,  I  know  you  will  understand  me  when 
I  say  that  in  the  toil  of  the  journey  I  sometimes  feel 
a  sense  of  sympathy  from  the  souls  who  have  passed 
this  same  way  before  me,  sometimes  receive  a  great 
thrill  of  inspiration  and  hope  as  stooping  down  I  find 
the  footprints  of  a  Peter  or  a  Mary,  the  vestiges  of  a 
Fenelon  or  a  ]\Iadam  Guyon,  traced  upon  the  same 
steps  of  faith  and  duty  which  I  am  now  trying  to 
take.  Nor  will  you  think  it  strange  if  at  the  Holy 
Table,  next  to  the  communion  of  the  Master  of  the 
Feast  Himself,  I  o\ati  a  joy  and  comfort  from  sitting 
doA^m  with  St.  John  and  St.  Paul,  with  St.  Francis 
and  Savonarola,  with  Tauler  and  Melanchthon,  with 
Baxter  and  Boyle  and  Milton.  Nor  will  it  be  deemed 
incredible  if  I  reverence  the  felt  touch  of  nearer 
spirits  giving  sacredness  to  the  time,  and  confess  that 
these  old  paths  are  dearer  to  me  because  their  every 
step  has  been  visited  by  the  feet  of  a  saintly  mother 
who  long  ago  passed  from  my  weeping  child  eyes  into 
the  effulgence  of  God. 

Again  I  love  the  old  paths  because  they  are  not 
man's  paths  but  the  paths  of  Almighty  God. 


124  THE  OLD  PATHS 

"The  kingdom  that  I  seek 
Is  Thine — so  let  the  way 
That  leads  to  it  be  Thine, 
Else  I  must  surely  stray/' 

I  feel  the  truth  of  that,  and  it  makes  the  old  paths  a 
thousand  times  more  precious  to  me  that  they  are  all 
given  and  assured  by  God  and  our  Saviour.  It  is  not 
much  that  the  road  is  attractive  and  interesting  if 
you  must  travel  every  step  of  it  with  the  constant 
consciousness  of  mistake  and  the  vague  fear  of  final 
loss.  But  to  know  that  you  possess  a  chart  from  Him 
who  cannot  deceive  or  disappoint,  to  feel  that  your 
destination  is  as  certain  as  eternal  truth  and  omnipo- 
tence can  make  it,  is  a  comfort  like  no  other  in  this 
world  which  shakes  ever  beneath  our  feet.  I  look 
upon  those  other  speculative  paths  across  the  meadows 
and  around  by  the  marshes,  where  voices  of  the  new 
theology  and  the  new  science  are  calling  us,  and  con- 
sole myself  with  the  thought  that  the  future  will 
give  time  enough  and  light  enough  to  learn  where 
they  lead  to.  But  in  a  world  so  dense  with  darkness 
and  thronged  with  dangers,  where  the  time  is  so  short 
and  the  journey  so  momentous,  I  am  thankful  there 
is  one  path  made  by  God  Himself  with  divine  way- 
marks  at  every  turn,  in  which  no  traveler  ever  failed 
of  reaching  his  desired  destination.  There  was  Moses 
long  ago.  He  walked  in  the  old  paths,  he  went  by 
the  good  way.  He  finished  his  course  and  chanted  his 
dying  song,  ''The  eternal  God  is  thy  refuge  and  un- 
derneath are  the  everlasting  arms.''     With  that  he 


THE  OLD  PATHS  125 

fell  asleep  and  God  buried  him.  And  lo,  fifteen  hun- 
dred years  afterward  how  safe  he  is,  how  happy,  talk- 
ing with  Jesus  on  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration ! 

Finally,  I  love  the  old  paths  because  they  are  for 
all  mankind  and  are  adapted  to  the  feet  of  every 
man  and  woman  and  child.  I  like  not  that  in  re- 
ligion which  is  suited  only  to  the  select  few.  I  love 
those  things  which,  like  the  Apostles'  Creed,  the  Ten 
Commandments,  the  Lord's  Prayer,  the  Cross  of 
Christ,  contemplate  all,  in  which  all  have  a  like  in- 
terest and  may  find  a  like  satisfaction.  I  love  to 
breathe  the  common  air,  to  live  under  the  common 
skies,  to  feel  that  I  am  one  of  the  many  children  of  a 
common  Father.  I  love  this  church  the  better  because 
it  is  not  a  class  church  or  a  church  of  one  idea,  but  a 
congregation  of  men  and  women  and  children  in 
which  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  high  and  the  low 
are  mingled  together,  an  image  and  representation  of 
humanity.  And  so  I  love  these  old  paths  to  heaven 
better  because  they  put  us  in  a  conmion  position  as 
members  of  the  family  of  God. 

There  is  no  misty  metaphysic  here  requiring  pe- 
culiar temperaments  to  receive  it  and  artificial  glasses 
to  penetrate  it.  There  is  no  catering  to  culture  and 
intellectualism  and  the  desire  to  climb  up  to  the  skies 
by  some  esoteric  staircase  discernible  only  by  the 
clever  few.  Simple  as  the  highest  things  always  are, 
nearer  to  the  heart  than  to  the  head  as  is  everything 
divine,  bowing  themselves  down  where  the  feeblest 
intellect  can  see  them  and  a  little  child  can  walk  in 


126  THE  OLD  PATHS 

them  and  the  whole  family  of  men  can  come  up  to 
heaven  together  in  them,  such  are  the  old  paths  on 
which  the  light  of  God's  face  ever  falls  and  the  call 
of  the  Saviour's  voice  ever  sounds  and  the  travelers 
find  rest  for  their  souls. 

Here  I  pause.  Your  time  and  thought  have  been 
taken  up  this  morning,  my  friends,  with  an  examina- 
tion of  the  grounds  for  expecting  future  improve- 
ments in  religion.  But  let  us  never  forget  that  there 
is  a  sense  in  which  we  may  improve  religion,  just  as 
there  is  a  sense  in  which  we  may  be  said  to  improve 
the  sun  and  the  sea  and  the  forests  and  the  lightning, 
not  in  themselves  but  in  their  relations  to  us.  "We 
may  place  ourselves  more  fully  under  the  power  of 
the  sun.  We  may  make  ourselves  more  familiar  with 
the  forests.  We  may  explore  the  sea  and  train  the 
lightning.  So  we  may  improve  religion  by  giving  it 
larger  place  in  our  thoughts,  fuller  control  of  our 
actions,  more  enthusiastic  homage  of  our  lives.  We 
may  keep  the  old  paths  more  faithfully,  reverence 
them  more  heartily,  walk  in  them  more  holily,  and 
do  more  toward  bringing  others  into  the  good  way 
where  they  shall  find  rest  for  their  souls. 


STRENGTHENING  THE  THINGS  WHICH 
REMAIN. 

** Strengthen  the  things  which  remain."     Kevelation  3:  2. 

*' Strengthen  the  things  which  remain."  Make  the 
most  of  what  is  left.  There  is  more  left  than  you 
think.  Things  are  never  so  bad  as  they  seem  to  one 
who  has  just  been  defeated  and  denuded.  In  losing 
what  he  cares  for  most  he  seems  to  himself  to  have  lost 
all.  Perhaps  he  has  not  even  lost  the  best.  Perhaps 
his  misfortune  will  prove  his  advantage  while  it  opens 
his  eyes  to  unappreciated  possessions.  Many  a  man 
has  learned  by  a  great  loss  the  value  of  other  things 
he  had  too  lightly  esteemed.  The  taking  away  of  his 
idol  has  removed  the  scales  from  his  eyes  and  given 
him  a  newer,  larger  outlook.  It  was  a  crushing  blow 
to  the  disciples  of  Jesus  when  that  visible  companion- 
ship with  the  Master  on  which  they  had  staked  their 
all  was  disrupted  by  His  telling  them  at  the  Last 
Supper,  ' '  I  must  go  away  and  leave  you,  and  whither 
I  go  ye  cannot  come."  They  were  panic-stricken. 
They  were  sure  they  had  lost  everything.  They 
learned  afterwards  that  their  seeming  loss  was  a  sub- 
stantial gain. 

There  are  two  ways  of  taking  losses.  One  way  is 
to  hang  over  what  is  gone  and  indulge  in  pathetic 
plaints  over  the  irrecoverable.     There  are  men  and 


Preached  in  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  Binghamton,  1904. 

127 


128  THE  THINGS  THAT  EEMAIN 

women  whose  life  has  resolved  itself  into  a  mournful 
retrospect.  They  think  only  of  what  is  lost.  They 
live  among  the  graves  and  lodge  beneath  the  monu- 
ments. "We  hear  their  melancholy  voice  in  the  lines 
of  the  poet. 

*  *  O  for  the  touch  of  a  vanished  hand, 
And  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still ! 

Break,  break,  break. 

At  the  foot  of  thy  crags,  O  Sea! 

But  the  tender  grace  of  a  day  that  is  dead 
Will  never  come  back  to  me. ' ' 

The  other  method  of  meeting  losses  is  to  take  the 
eyes  off  what  is  gone  and  fix  the  mind  upon  what 
remains.  "When  Jeremy  Taylor  was  sold  out  of  house 
and  home  and  his  family  were  driven  into  the  streets 
he  could  still  say,  ''"What  now?  Let  me  look  about 
me.  They  have  left  me  the  sun  and  moon,  a  loving 
wife  and  many  friends.  They  have  not  taken  away, 
unless  I  list,  my  merry  countenance,  cheerful  spirit 
and  good  conscience.  They  have  left  me  the  provi- 
dence of  God,  the  promises  of  the  Gospel  and  the 
hope  of  heaven.  I  still  eat  and  drink,  sleep  and 
wake,  read  and  meditate.  And  having  so  many  causes 
of  joy,  and  so  great,  I  must  be  very  much  in  love  with 
sorrow  and  peevishness  if  I  choose  to  sit  down  on 
my  little  handful  of  thorns.''  A  very  good  illustra- 
tion of  the  principle  commended  to  us  in  the  text, 
'* Strengthen  the  things  which  remain.'' 

I  should  like  to  take  this  principle  for  a  moment 


THE  THINGS  THAT  REMAIN  129 

into  the  sphere  of  Church  life  and  religious  thought. 
We  have  lost  some  things  here  in  twenty-five  years. 
The  authority  of  the  Bible,  the  reverence  for  creeds, 
the  practice  of  church-going  and  confidence  in  prayer 
are  not  what  they  once  were.  Changes  have  taken 
place  and  are  still  going  on  in  men's  conceptions  of 
religion  and  habits  of  religion.  Those  of  us  who  are 
still  in  middle  life  can  look  back  and  see  changes 
some  of  which  we  cannot  but  feel  are  for  the  worse. 
There  is  a  loss  of  faith,  a  loss  of  conviction  of  sin,  a 
loss  of  grip  upon  eternal  realities.  Things  dear  to 
the  religious  consciousness  and  once  accepted  as  fixed 
facts  are  now  challenged  by  new  scientific  and  critical 
methods.  There  is  a  disturbing  destroying  element  in 
the  air.  We  all  feel  it  in  greater  or  less  degree,  for 
we  are  all  one  family  and  breathe  the  same  atmos- 
phere. 

What  are  we  to  do?  There  are  three  things,  one 
or  other  of  which  some  of  us  are  tempted  to  do.  Some 
are  tempted  to  take  the  attitude  of  unintelligent  pro- 
test against  all  new  ideas  that  come  from  the  side  of 
science  and  criticism.  They  would  treat  all  new  truth 
as  Caliph  Omar  treated  the  library  of  Alexandria. 
He  looked  at  the  magnificent  collection  of  books  a 
few  moment  and  then  said,  ' '  If  these  books  agree  with 
the  Koran  they  are  unnecessary,  if  they  disagree  with 
the  Koran  they  are  lies ;  have  them  all  out  and  burn 
them  up." 

Others  are  tempted  to  take  the  attitude  of  complete 
surrender.     They   feel   a  secret  pleasure  in   seeing 


130  THE  THINGS  THAT  REMAIN 

what  never  was  very  congenial  to  them  assaulted. 
*'Ring  in  the  new,  ring  out  the  old,  we  never  did 
think  much  of  it.'' 

There  is  a  third  class  who  are  simply  afraid,  afraid 
of  thought  and  investigation,  afraid  they  will  have 
to  give  up  everything,  afraid  to  hold  on  and  afraid 
to  let  go,  afraid  most  of  all  of  their  own  fears.  Be- 
cause they  are  troubled  they  think  the  foundations 
of  the  house  must  be  settling.  They  make  their  own 
fears  an  argument  against  the  ground  of  their  faith. 

My  friends,  there  is  a  better  way  than  to  follow 
any  one  of  these  courses.  To  stop  investigation  is 
impossible  and  undesirable,  to  be  afraid  of  it  is  un- 
worthy, to  welcome  it  as  a  destructive  agency  is  im- 
pious. But  to  look  about  and  see  what  remains  and 
use  new  discoveries  to  strengthen  what  cannot  be 
shaken  is  wise  and  recuperative.  There  are  certain 
things  that  remain  unshaken.  The  Bible  remains,  the 
revelation  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ  remains,  the  death- 
less soul  remains,  the  truth  of  worship  and  reality  of 
spiritual  intercourse  remain,  right  and  wrong,  truth 
and  duty,  time  and  eternity,  the  great  facts  of  re- 
ligion all  remain.  No  man  need  be  panic-stricken 
and  look  out  tremblingly  to  the  setting  sun  as  if  the 
glory  of  Christianity  had  departed.  It  is  for  every- 
one who  knows  in  whom  he  believes  to  turn  his  eyes 
to  the  east  and  rising  sun,  and  be  strong  in  the  Lord. 
We  need  not  stand  shivering  in  the  face  of  every  an- 
nouncement of  criticism  as  if  it  were  going  to  take 
something  from  the  Bible  and  from  God.     All  new 


THE  THINGS  THAT  REMAIN  131 

discoveries  so  far  as  they  are  true  are  designed  in 
God's  providence  to  interpret  the  Bible  and  bring  out 
its  hidden  truths.  I  was  asked  the  other  day  to  join 
a  league  organized  in  New  York  City  to  defend  the 
Bible  against  the  encroachments  of  modern  thought. 
I  declined  to  take  part  in  the  movement.  I  will  not 
take  the  attitude  of  opposition  to  investigation.  Nor 
will  I  take  the  attitude  of  surrender.  I  will  take  the 
attitude  of  assimilation.  I  will  stand  on  the  immov- 
able rock  of  what  I  know  by  inward  experience  of 
its  truth,  and  then  I  will  inquire  how  these  new  dis- 
coveries conjfirm,  increase  and  enrich  the  body  of  truth 
which  I  know.  I  will  strengthen  the  things  which 
remain.  I  will  believe  them  more  heartily,  stand  on 
them  more  firmly,  obey  them  more  loyally,  and  I  will 
seek  to  make  the  new  things  enhance  the  riches  of 
the  old. 

Brethren,  it  is  a  mistake  to  think  the  Bible  is  in 
danger  because  it  is  being  investigated.  It  is  a  mis- 
take to  think  that  faith  is  departing  because  it  re- 
quires a  struggle  to  keep  it.  Life,  true  life,  is  a 
struggle  on  every  side  of  it.  Constant,  unflinching 
effort  is  the  price  of  keeping  anything  that  is  worth 
keeping.  To  keep  the  old  and  recognize  the  new,  to 
prove  all  things  and  hold  fast  that  which  is  good,  to 
gather  our  faith  in  and  concentrate  it  upon  what  can- 
not be  shaken,  to  strike  its  roots  deeper  and  deeper 
in  God  and  His  redemption  in  Jesus  Christ  by  every 
day's  fellowship  with  Him,  this  is  certainly  a  life- 
long intellectual  and  moral  struggle.    But  the  effect 


132  THE  THINGS  THAT  EEMAIN 

is  growing  strength,  increasing  confidence,  deepening 
peace;  and  the  end  is  a  crown  of  life. 

Secondly,  I  should  like  to  take  the  principle, 
'  *  Strengthen  the  things  which  remain, ' '  into  the  sphere 
of  the  family.  Here,  too,  new  ideas  are  coming  in  and 
there  are  not  wanting  signs  that  give  cause  for 
anxiety.  Few  thinking  persons  can  be  blind  to  the 
increasing  and  shameful  dissolution  of  domestic  ties. 
That  one  out  of' every  eight  or  ten  marriages  ends  in 
a  divorce  court  is  something  to  make  everyone  pause 
who  cherishes  the  idea  of  the  home  as  the  basis  of 
civilization  and  bond  of  moral  society.  The  ideas 
that  some  advanced  teachers  are  putting  forward,  that 
marriage  is  not  a  permanent  union  but  only  a  dis- 
soluble contract,  that  love  is  not  a  divine  gift  but 
only  self-interested  gratification,  that  the  birth  of 
children  is  a  necessary  inconvenience  to  be  checked 
as  far  as  possible,  that  ''a  large  family  is  almost  a 
disgrace,  a  proper  object  of  sneer  and  scorn,"  that 
the  whole  root  of  the  family  is  a  mere  physical  rela- 
tion, and  that  the  idea  of  a  happy  indissoluble  union 
of  husband  and  wife  and  children  embracing  the 
whole  life  in  all  its  relations  is  a  baseless  dream 
and  silly  sentiment,  all  this  is  nothing  less  than  a 
complete  abandonment  of  the  diviQe  principles  on 
which  the  Christian  family  rests  and  a  miserable  re- 
lapse into  paganism. 

I  am  thankful  that  we  may  hope  that  these  ideas 
have  not  yet  leavened  American  family  life  and  that 
the  majority  of  our  people  still  cling  tenaciously  to  the 


THE  THINGS  THAT  REMAIN  133 

American  home  with  its  beautiful  and  happy  influ- 
ences. But  I  cannot  disguise  the  fact  that  these 
ideas  are  making  progress  among  us,  and  that  it  is 
not  a  moment  too  soon  to  strengthen  the  things  that 
remain.  I  am  glad  that  our  Church  in  General  As- 
sembly has  undertaken  to  strengthen  the  marriage 
bond  by  forbidding  her  ministers  to  solemnize  the 
marriage  of  any  divorced  person  or  persons  except 
where  the  divorce  has  been  obtained  for  causes  recog- 
nized in  the  Scriptures  and  the  standards  of  our 
Church  as  sufficient.  Though  it  cannot  prevent  mar- 
riage by  civil  officers,  the  fact  that  thirteen  prin- 
cipal Christian  bodies  are  now  working  together  to 
establish  in  their  practice  the  stringent  Scriptural 
rule  for  divorce,  will  certainly  have  a  tendency  to 
deter  many  persons  from  seeking  reparation  for  light 
or  unworthy  reasons.  It  will  put  a  stigma  on  persons 
divorced  for  insufficient  causes  and  on  marriages 
contracted  with  such  persons. 

But,  dear  friends,  prohibition  is  not  enough.  We 
shall  never  eradicate  these  evils  and  strengthen  the 
things  which  remain  by  mere  repression.  Not  until 
we  come  back  to  the  divine  idea  of  the  family  and 
see  its  loveliness  and  feel  its  preciousness  as  God  cre- 
ated it  shall  we  make  the  Christian  home  what  it 
ought  to  be.  The  earthly  family  was  created  to  be 
an  image  of  the  heavenly.  In  the  home  on  earth,  in 
the  love  of  husband  and  wife,  of  parent  and  children, 
were  to  be  reflected  the  love  and  blessedness  of  the 
Father's  Home  in  Heaven.     The  home  was  meant 


134  THE  THINGS  THAT  REMAIN 

to  be  a  ladder  stretching  up  toward  tlie  great  Father- 
heart  of  God,  whereon  angels  of  aspiration  should 
ascend  from  earth  and  angels  of  light  and  invitation 
should  descend  from  heaven. 

Brethren,  let  us  try  to  make  our  homes  what  home 
was  meant  to  be  and  what  it  was  to  most  of  us  in 
our  childhood,  the  embodiment  of  all  that  was  pure 
and  good  and  dear  and  holy,  a  charmed  circle  of 
mutual  affection  and  spiritual  harmony  of  which  the 
love  of  God  and  worship  of  God  was  the  bond  and 
regulating  power,  not  perfect  certainly,  not  without 
jarring  notes  and  breaks  in  the  music,  but  seeing  per- 
fection, getting  farther  and  farther  away  from  breaks 
and  discords  and  ever  more  reaching  up  toward  the 
full  harmony  and  perfect  peace  of  the  Home  on  high. 

But  again,  I  should  like  to  take  the  principle 
"Strengthen  the  things  which  remain"  into  the 
sphere  of  the  nation.  It  was  a  long  time  before  I 
came  to  see  that  the  State,  like  the  Church  and  the 
Family,  was  a  divine  institution.  I  used  to  think 
that  the  State  was  a  human  organization,  that  it  be- 
longed to  the  world  and  that  to  be  political  was  to  be 
worldly.  When  I  learned  from  the  Old  Testament 
that  the  nation  is  not  a  mere  voluntary  association 
of  people  but  a  creation  of  God,  and  that  the  ruler 
of  the  nation  is  not  merely  a  representative  of  the 
people  but  a  minister  of  God  to  execute  a  trust  accord- 
ing to  the  will  of  God,  the  whole  aspect  of  the  nation 
and  of  service  of  the  nation  was  changed  to  me.  I  saw 
that  patriotism  was  not  merely  loyalty  to  the  nation 


THE  THINGS  THAT  REMAIN  135 

but  loyalty  to  God.  I  saw  that  political  duties,  if 
performed  as  they  ought  to  be,  were  services  to  God. 
These  truths  were  brought  home  to  me  with  reveal- 
ing power  by  that  struggle  for  the  integrity  of  this 
nation  forty  years  ago  which  we  are  about  to  com- 
memorate by  once  more  paying  our  homage  to  its 
fallen  heroes  and  strewing  flowers  of  spring  upon 
their  resting  places.  My  friends,  the  men  who  went 
forth  into  that  struggle  were  not  only  patriotic  and 
brave  and  daring,  they  were  servants  of  God  doing 
and  suffering  the  will  of  God.  They  were  martyrs  as 
truly  as  Stephen  and  Polycarp  and  Huss  were  mar- 
tyrs. They  gave  their  lives  for  the  preservation  of  a 
divine  institution.  They  offered  themselves  to 
strengthen  the  things  that  remained  when  the  things 
that  remained  were  seemingly  few  and  on  the  brink 
of  destruction.  They  sacrificed  all  they  had,  home, 
happiness,  life  itself,  to  preserve  for  us  and  for  the 
generations  that  shall  come  after  us  a  precious  gift 
of  God.  We  owe  them  all  living  tributes  of  sacred 
and  tender  recollection.  More  than  this,  we  owe  it 
to  them  to  see  to  it  that  their  dying  was  not  in  vain, 
that  their  work  and  sacrifice  for  the  nation  follows 
them.  Strewing  flowers  on  their  graves  is  a  hollow 
mockery  unless  at  the  same  time  their  heroic  ex- 
ample inspires  us  to  a  stronger  love  of  our  country, 
to  a  higher  estimation  of  its  divine  blood-baptized 
institutions,  and  to  a  determined  purpose  to  preserve 
and  strengthen  the  things  that  remain.  0,  if  there 
could  be  on  this  coming  Memorial  Day  a  solemn  con- 


136  THE  THINGS  THAT  REMAIN 

secration  of  all  the  people  of  this  Republic  to  expel 
from  their  individual  lives  and  from  the  body  politic 
all  the  destroying  influences  of  graft,  bribery,  ex- 
travagance, sensuality,  polygamy,  and  to  establish 
and  enforce  the  great  principles  of  liberty,  equality, 
loyalty  to  law  and  to  God  on  which  the  nation  was 
founded,  that  would  be  to  honor  the  dead  and  serve 
the  country  in  deed  and  in  truth. 

"We  are  just  now  witnessing  a  humiliating  spec- 
tacle, a  great  strike  precipitated  upon  the  community 
for  no  other  reason  but  to  compel  a  corporation  to 
discharge  a  faithful  servant  of  many  years  and  to 
deprive  that  man  of  his  natural  right  to  earn  his 
living  by  labor.  There  could  hardly  be  a  more  fla- 
grant violation  of  the  fimdamental  principle  of  our 
nation.  The  fundamental  principle  of  this  nation 
as  laid  down  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  is 
that  all  men  are  created  equal  and  are  endowed  by 
their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights,  among 
which  are  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 
Of  course  it  is  not  meant  that  all  men  are  equal  in 
stature,  capacity,  wealth,  power  or  anything  of  that 
kind.  But  it  is  meant  that  all  man  have  an  equal  right 
to  live  their  lives  in  their  own  way,  to  make  the  best 
use  they  can  of  their  capacities  and  opportunities, 
and  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  their  industry  without  re- 
straint or  interference  from  any  other  individual  or 
class  of  individuals.  That  principle  ought  to  be  main- 
tained throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  this 
land.    And  no  love  of  our  own  ease  or  anxiety  for  our 


THE  THINGS  THAT  REMAIN  137 

pecuniary  interests  or  desire  for  votes  ought  to  be 
allowed  to  hinder  its  maintenance  a  moment.  The 
people  of  this  country  ought  to  stand  upright  and 
insist  with  firm  united  front  that  the  principle  of 
individual  liberty  and  equality  of  right  shall  be 
everywhere  fearlessly  and  strictly  enforced.  So  shall 
we  strengthen  the  things  which  remain  and  save  our- 
selves from  the  necessity  of  establishing  them  by  the 
dreadful  ordeal  of  civil  war. 

Before  closing  I  should  like  to  take  our  thought 
for  one  moment  into  the  very  heart  of  individual  life 
and  experience.  I  think  the  most  regretful  things 
we  have  to  remember  are  the  things  we  might  have 
done  but  failed  to  do.  The  dear  heart  in  the  home  we 
might  have  gladdened  by  an  act  of  love  and  tender- 
ness now  and  then,  the  bitter  cups  beyond  the  home 
we  might  have  sweetened  by  little  acts  of  kindness 
here  and  there,  the  wrongs  we  might  have  righted, 
the  tears  we  might  have  wiped  away,  the  sins  we 
might  have  hidden,  these  are  things  that  sadden  the 
memory  of  our  past  lives. 

You  remember  perhaps  the  boy  in  Mrs.  Hemans* 
poem  who  says,  ' '  0  while  my  brother  with  me  played, 
would  that  I  had  loved  him  more ! "  He  is  told  that 
his  brother  is  now  happy  in  heaven,  but  that  only 
opens  his  wound  wider  and  deepens  his  anguished 
ciy,  '^0  w^hile  my  brother  with  me  played,  would 
that  I  had  loved  him  more!"  The  truest  word  to 
have  spoken  to  that  child  would  have  been,  '*  Re- 
member you  have  other  brothers,  sisters  too,  still  left 


138  THE  THINGS  THAT  REMAIN 

on  earth,  for  whom  you  will  feel  the  same  regret  when 
they  are  gone.  Try  to  love  them  more  now/'  And 
the  truest  word  to  speak  to  us  men  and  women  who 
are  ready  to  sink  in  despair  at  the  memory  of  our 
shortcomings  toward  those  we  can  no  longer  help,  is 
that  there  are  others  who  may  still  be  helped.  There 
are  other  needy  you  may  succor,  other  wrongs  you 
may  right,  other  sorrows  you  may  heal,  other  sins 
you  may  hide.  Turn  your  regret  for  the  past  into 
present  love  and  present  duty.  **  Strengthen  the 
things  which  remain.'' 


JESUS   HIDING  HIS   FACE. 

''Jesus  stooped  down,  and  with  his  finger  wrote  on  the 
ground. ' '    St.  John  8 :  6. 

It  was  a  morning  hour  in  the  temple  of  Jerusalem. 
Jesus  had  passed  the  night  where  He  spent  so  many 
of  His  night  hours,  under  the  starry  skies  closeted 
with  God  among  the  olive  trees.  With  the  break  of 
day  He  returned  to  His  labors  of  love  in  the  city 
and  sat  down  in  the  temple  to  teach  and  heal  the 
people  who  came  flocking  to  Him  even  at  that  early 
hour.  He  had  just  begun  His  discourse  when  into  the 
temple  square  issued  a  noisy  party  of  scribes  and 
Pharisees,  pulling  and  pushing  before  them  an  un- 
veiled, dishevelled,  terror-stricken  woman.  She  had 
been  discovered  during  the  night  in  a  flagrant  viola- 
tion of  her  marriage  vow,  and  they  were  dragging 
her  fresh  from  the  shame  of  detection  into  the  pres- 
ence of  Jesus  to  get  His  judgment  upon  her.  Press- 
ing boldly  through  the  assembly  which  He  was  ad- 
dressing, they  sat  their  trembling  prisoner  before 
Him  and  asked  with  a  great  show  of  outraged  purity, 
''Teacher,  this  woman  was  taken  in  the  very  act  of 
sinning.  Now  Moses  in  the  law  charged  us  that  such 
should  be  stoned.     What  is  your  opinion?" 

It  was  like  a  foul  irruption  of  sewage  into  a  pure 
stream.    What  a  moment  ago  had  been  a  holy  place 

Preached  in  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  Binghamton,  1905. 

139 


140  JESUS  HIDING  HIS  FACE 

is  now  reeking  with  sensual  curiosity,  cold-blooded 
indelicacy,  brutality  and  hypocrisy.  The  woman,  as 
any  woman  in  the  East  unveiled  and  exposed  before 
a  crowd  of  men  would  naturally  be,  is  in  a  state  of 
awful  torture.  Besides,  the  whole  contrivance  is 
nothing  but  a  malicious  trap  to  catch  Jesus '  feet  and 
overthrow  Him.  They  Imow  how  compassionately 
He  has  ever  treated  the  fallen,  pitying  those  whom 
others  scorned,  encouraging  those  whom  others  crush- 
ed, eating  with  sinners  and  letting  a  woman  of  the 
street  bathe  His  feet  with  her  tears  and  wipe  them 
with  her  hair.  Now  we  have  caught  Him,  is  their 
thought.  If  He  shall  say  ^'let  the  poor  woman  go 
free,"  we  will  arraign  Him  for  setting  at  naught  the 
law  of  Moses.  If  He  shall  say  ''Go  stone  the  guilty 
thing  accord  to  the  Mosaic  law,"  we  shall  have  Him 
belying  His  compassion  and  we  will  charge  Him  with 
invading  the  prerogative  of  the  Roman  Governor, 
who  alone  has  authority  to  condemn  persons  to  death. 
Which  of  these  horns  of  their  cunningly  devised 
dilemma  does  Jesus  take  ?  He  takes  neither  one.  He 
simply  drops  down  on  His  knee,  and,  like  one  who 
hears  not,  sees  not,  heeds  not.  He  writes  with  His 
finger  on  the  ground.  The  accusers  watch  Him  with 
gleeful  looks,  as  if  His  downcast  face  and  silent  acting 
were  a  confession  that  He  was  trapped  and  could  not 
escape.  They  proceed  to  urge  their  question.  They 
lay  their  hands  on  His  shoulders  and  insist  on  an 
answer,  and  an  answer  they  suddenly  get.  Raising 
His  holy  head  from  the  ground  one  moment,  Jesus 


JESUS  HIDING  HIS  FACE  141 

utters  a  word  which  strikes  them  like  an  arrow  from 
the  throne  of  God.  ' '  The  one  among  you  who  is  with- 
out sin  himself,  let  him  first  cast  a  stone  at  her. ' ' 

Perhaps  the  woman  shivers  in  expectation  of  that 
first  stone.  But  it  is  never  thrown.  Everyone  waits 
for  someone  else  to  lead.  No  one  is  willing  to  take 
the  risk  of  having  his  past  life  exposed  by  the  clair- 
voyance of  Jesus.  The  older  men  feel  a  strong  in- 
clination to  withdraw,  and  begin  to  edge  their  way  out 
through  the  crowd.  And  the  younger  men,  glancing 
at  each  other  with  cowed  faces,  slink  out  one  after 
another.  Jesus,  who  has  stooped  down  again  and  is 
tracing  letters  on  the  ground,  lets  them  all  go  out 
without  looking  up.  The  last  one  gone.  He  raises  His 
head  and  turning  His  holy  tender  eye  upon  the 
woman  asks,  ''Where  are  those  thine  accusers?  Did 
no  man  cast  a  stone  at  thee  ? "  ' '  No  one.  Lord, ' '  is  the 
reply.  ''Neither  shall  I.  Go,  repent,  and  sin  no 
more. ' ' 

This  memorable  story  has  been  the  subject  of  more 
discussion  than  almost  any  passage  in  the  Gospel. 
It  is  wholly  omitted  from  some  ancient  manuscripts 
and  versions.  Many  eminent  Fathers  rejected  it  as 
dangerous  in  its  teaching.  I  notice  that  the  revisers 
of  the  New  Testament  have  put  brackets  around  it  as 
if  it  were  an  unsafe  spot  which  needed  to  be  railed 
off.  But  though  the  critical  evidence  against  it  were 
much  stronger  than  it  is,  its  authenticity  would  de- 
fend itself.  There  are  some  passages  in  the  Bible 
which  we  know  are  genuine  and  divine  because  no 


142  JESUS  HIDING  HIS  FACE 

mind  of  man  could  have  conceived  them  or  hand  of 
man  invented  them.  This  is  one  of  them.  There  is 
here  an  exhibition  of  divine  feeling,  divine  penetra- 
tion and  divine  dealing  so  far  above  man's  power  to 
manifest  that  it  is  evidently  declared  by  its  own  super- 
human character  to  be  a  message  from  God  and  the 
penitent's  gospel. 

Coming  now  to  the  story  itself,  what  a  startling 
window  is  here  opened  into  Jesus'  inner  nature  and 
personal  feeling.  I  shaU.  never  forget  the  emotion 
which  I  experienced  when  the  meaning  of  Jesus' 
stooping  down  was  first  explained  to  me.  I  was  read- 
ing a  book,  famous  a  few  years  ago,  entitled  "Ecce 
Homo."  Why  did  Jesus  stoop  down  to  write  on  the 
ground?  Why  did  He  not  stand  and  look  them  all 
full  in  the  face  ?  I  had  never  asked  myself  this  ques- 
tion distinctly.  I  thought  He  stooped  down  perhaps 
to  show  that  he  paid  no  attention  to  them.  Professor 
Seeley  said  Jesus  was  ashamed,  so  ashamed  that  He 
instinctively  stooped  down  to  hide  His  blushing  face. 
He  said  the  foul  scene  fell  on  the  chastity  of  His  pure 
feeling  so  painfully  that  He  had  no  eyes  to  look  up. 
He  could  not  meet  the  eye  of  the  crowd,  the  eye  of 
the  accusers,  least  of  all  perhaps  at  that  moment  the 
eye  of  the  woman.  And  in  His  burning  suffering 
sensibility  He  stooped  down  to  hide  His  crimsoned 
face  and  wrote  on  the  ground.  I  felt  the  truth  of  the 
explanation  the  moment  I  read  it.  And  what  a  dis- 
closure it  was  to  me  of  Jesus'  inner  nature  and  feel- 
ing!     I  was  like  a  child  for  the  first  time  he  sees 


JESUS  HIDING  HIS  FACE  143 

his  father  in  an  agony  of  deep  emotion.  I  saw  my 
Saviour  in  a  new  and  affecting  aspect.  My  heart 
shook  and  I  was  moved  to  fall  at  His  feet. 

My  friends,  the  expression  which  comes  to  my  lips 
is,  How  little  we  know  about  this  Saviour  of  ours  yet ! 
We  know  something  about  His  words  and  works.  We 
have  apprehended  a  little  of  His  outward  life.  But 
there  is  a  whole  sphere  of  His  being  which  we  have 
not  yet  entered,  the  sphere  of  His  inward  emotion. 
His  pent-up  sensibilities.  There  are  passages  of 
Jesus'  life  before  which  I  am  like  a  person  looking  into 
a  dark  room.  Once  He  had  a  struggle  with  temptation 
in  the  wilderness,  once  He  sighed,  once  He  groaned 
in  spirit,  twice  He  wept,  once  He  exclaimed,  "Now 
is  my  soul  troubled,  and  what  shall  I  say,"  once  He 
fell  down  on  His  face  on  the  ground  in  an  agony  so 
intense  that  discolored  drops  resembling  blood  exuded 
from  His  brow.  These  are  moral  mysteries,  and  mys- 
teries they  will  remain  until  we  see  Him  face  to  face. 
And  yet  these  glimpses  of  Jesus'  moral  sensibility 
are  given  us  because  they  are  fraught  with  impres- 
sions important  for  us  to  receive. 

We  have  then  this  fact  to  consider,  that  Jesus  feels 
toward  every  evil  of  us  men  and  women  according  to 
its  nature.  He  loathes  what  is  disgusting  in  us,  hates 
what  is  cruel,  grieves  over  what  is  wrong  in  us,  is 
ashamed  of  what  is  low  in  us,  shudders  at  what  is 
polluting  and  awful  in  us.  He  gathers  up  into  His 
own  soul  the  representative  acts  of  us  all.  He  bears 
our  sins,  not  merely  their  penalty,  but  the  very  feel- 


144  JESUS  HIDING  HIS  FACE 

ing  and  heartache  of  them.  In  a  sense  deeper  than 
we  ever  read  into  the  words,  He  is  wounded  by  our 
transgressions  and  bruised  by  our  iniquities.  Every 
evil  thing  He  touches  burns  into  His  sensitive  spirit 
like  a  hot  iron  into  an  infant's  hand.  The  trouble 
with  us  men  is  that  we  are  so  bronzed  over  with  sin 
that  we  are  never  duly  shocked  by  its  baseness  or 
hurt  by  its  wrong.  It  takes  purity  to  feel  impurity, 
it  takes  honor  to  suffer  shame,  it  takes  sinlessness  to 
recoil  from  defilement.  And  Jesus  Christ  is  perfect 
sinlessness,  perfect  purity,  perfect  moral  loveliness. 

0  when  I  think  of  Him  going  about  in  Judsea  and 
Galilee  with  that  divine  heart  of  His,  the  most  sen- 
sitive that  ever  beat  in  a  human  breast,  because  the 
most  pure,  when  I  think  of  Him  bending  over  every 
one  of  us  all  day  long  in  our  varying  acts  and  con- 
ditions of  sin  and  shame,  it  seems  to  me  that  He  must 
often  suffer  throes  of  painful  sensibility  of  which  we 
never  think.  Besides,  Jesus  Christ  is  love,  and  love 
is  a  capacity  for  suffering  sensibility.  For  a  Being 
of  infinite  purity  to  love,  really  to  love  men  and  wo- 
men like  us,  is  to  bear  a  burden  of  inexpressible  pain 
and  sorrow.  Why  did  the  King  of  Israel  cover  His 
face  with  his  hands  and  burst  into  that  agony  of 
woe,  '  *  0  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son !  Would  God  I  had 
died  for  thee,  0  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son ! "  ?  Why 
did  that  mother  fall  down  the  other  day  and  die  of 
a  broken  heart  at  the  news  of  her  daughter's  disgrace? 
Love  did  it,  love  contemplating  the  sin  and  woe  of  its 
object.    And  Jesus  Christ  is  infinite  love,  love  of  God, 


JESUS  HIDING  HIS  FACE  145 

love  of  man  in  one,  pouring  itself  out  on  sinful  woeful 
objects.  Do  you  wonder  that  He  sighs  and  groans  and 
weeps  and  stoops  down  to  hide  His  averted  face  ? 

Here  I  pause  to  ask  a  question.  I  ask  you,  I  ask 
myself,  have  we  any  of  this  suffering  sensitiveness 
to  evil?  Have  we  even  a  little  of  the  Master's  sense 
of  shrinking  shame  in  the  presence  of  impurity,  in- 
delicacy and  ribaldry  ?  We  may  easily  know,  we  can- 
not help  knowing.  There  are  novelists  and  play- 
writers  who  are  continually  doing  what  these  Phari- 
sees were  engaged  in,  dragging  some  unseemly  sight 
into  the  public  gaze  and  making  their  pages  purvey- 
ors for  lickerish  mouths  and  salacious  lips.  If  we 
have  Jesus'  holy  sensitiveness  to  what  is  gross  and 
sensual  there  will  be  entertainments  which  we  shall 
not  be  able  to  attend  without  stooping  down  and 
writing  on  the  ground.  There  will  be  books  which 
we  cannot  read  and  look  up  into  any  pure  eye,  least 
of  all  the  divine.  There  will  be  conversations  which 
we  shall  not  be  able  to  participate  in  without  faces 
burning  and  blushing  with  pain. 

Another  feature  of  this  story  which  impresses  me 
is  the  way  in  which  Jesus  deals  with  the  sinner.  Look 
at  these  robed  and  sanctimonious  citizens  haling  a 
trembling  woman  to  judgment.  Not  one  of  them  is 
exempt  from  some  form  of  the  same  sin  which  she  has 
committed.  Not  one  of  them  but  ought  to  be  on  his 
knees  before  a  merciful  God  seeking  forgiveness  for 
his  own  iniquities.  Besides,  it  is  their  own  sister, 
their  own  flesh  and  blood.     Not  one  of  them  but 


146  JESUS  HIDING  HIS  FACE 

ought  to  be  touched  with  sympathy  for  her  and 
kindled  with  desire  for  her  restoration.  But  look  at 
them.  They  have  less  feeling  than  the  stones  they 
are  standing  upon.  They  drag  her  into  the  presence 
of  infinite  Purity  and  propose  stoning  her  to  death,  a 
punishment  that  has  been  obsolete  for  ages.  They 
go  over  the  whole  shameful  recital  and  hold  her  up 
for  public  inspection  like  a  filthy  garment.  They 
make  a  tableau  of  her  and  exploit  her  sin  for  a  dem- 
onstration in  casuistry  in  order  to  entrap  the  world's 
Redeemer.     ''Let  us  fall  now  into  the  hand  of  the 

Lord ;   and  let  me  not  fall  into  the  hand  of 

man, ' '  said  David.  It  is  amazing  how  hard  and  piti- 
less sinners  can  be  upon  sinners.  "Why,  if  the  people 
of  this  city  were  to  be  judged  by  one  another  I  doubt 
if  one  would  escape  condemnation. 

Thank  heaven  there  is  One  who  pities,  One  who 
feels  the  sin  of  an  unchaste  woman  as  if  she  were  His 
own  sister,  One  whose  prompting  is  not  to  condenm 
but  to  save.  One  whose  verdict  upon  her,  upon  you 
and  me  if  we  will  hear  it,  is,  as  George  Matheson 
words  it,  ''You  are  black  but  I  send  you  toward  the 
sun.  You  are  guilty  but  I  bury  your  yesterday.  You 
are  unworthy  to  live  but  you  shall  live  to  be  worthy, 
I  condemn  you  and  I  absolve  you.  I  blame  your  past 
and  I  wipe  it  out  forever.  You  will  be  judged  by 
deeds  to  come,  not  by  departed  days.  Go  and  sin  no 
more.  * ' 

Here  I  pause  again  to  ask,  have  you  and  I  any  of 
this  sympathy  and  hope  for  the  fallen?     How  is  it 


JESUS  HIDING  HIS  FACE  147 

when  a  person  among  us  is  suspected  of  going  astray  ? 
Do  people,  good  Christian  people,  lock  the  matter 
right  up  in  their  own  breasts  and  study  how  to  recover 
the  erring  one?  Or  de  they  oftener  than  not  go  out 
among  the  neighbors  with  the  story  and  roll  it  under 
their  tongues  as  a  sweet  morsel  and  dissect  it  like 
cold-blooded  anatomists  and  watch  the  suspected  one 
for  new  evidences  of  frailty?  Pity  it  is  that  there 
should  be  so  little  real  sheltering  protecting  love 
among  people  whose  sins  all  need  covering.  Pity  that 
it  should  be  so  easy  in  this  dark  world  for  the  stand- 
ing to  fall  and  so  hard  for  the  fallen  to  rise. 

And  we  have  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
"We  have  it  in  our  power  by  our  looks  and  words  and 
acts  of  recognition  and  encouragement  to  loose  those 
who  are  bound  from  their  condemnation  and  despair. 
And  we  have  it  in  our  power  by  our  averted  looks 
and  hard  condemning  thoughts  to  bind  those  who 
have  gone  wrong  with  chains  ten  times  stronger  than 
their  own  sins.  All  about  us  are  persons  whom  we 
are  setting  free  by  imparting  to  them  our  conviction 
that  there  is  forgiveness  for  them  to  seek,  a  new  life 
for  them  to  live  and  a  pure  heaven  for  them  to  gain. 
Or  else  about  us  are  persons  whom  we  are  crowding 
down  from  one  depth  of  sin  and  despair  to  another 
by  making  them  feel  that  there  is  no  chance  for  the 
like  of  them,  no  present  release,  no  future  possibili- 
ties. 

Some  persons  have  been  tempted  to  read  this  story 
out  of  the  Gospel  because  they  say  the  sinning  woman 


148  JESUS  HIDING  HIS  FACE 

is  let  off  so  easily.  They  think  her  sin  ought  to  have 
been  condemned  in  round  terms  and  she  ought  to  have 
been  reminded  of  what  she  deserved  even  though  her 
accusers  could  throw  no  stones  against  her.  I  cannot 
think  that  such  persons  have  ever  reaUy  read  the  story 
and  understood  how  the  woman  is  let  off.  No  man  or 
woman  who  has  ever  stood  where  this  woman  stood, 
after  her  accusers  were  gone,  alone  with  Jesus,  will 
imagine  that  she  was  let  off  without  a  pricked  con- 
science and  penitent  heart.  Left  alone  with  Jesus! 
So  long  as  the  Pharisees  are  around  charging  and 
condenming  her  I  seem  to  hear  her  saying  to  herself, 
' '  They  are  as  bad,  they  are  as  bad.  * '  But  when  she  is 
alone  face  to  face  with  stainless  Purity  how  her  at- 
titude changes !  She  ceases  at  once  measuring  herself 
by  others.  She  sees  herself  in  the  light  of  God.  It 
is  Judgment  Day  for  her.  0  how  the  waves  of  her 
past  guilt  and  shame  rise  over  her  submerged  soul! 
How  she  longs  for  her  lost  purity !  Then  to  her,  all 
convicted  of  sin  and  humbled  in  the  dust  for  her 
transgression,  Jesus  speaks  His  sin-absolving,  hope- 
giving  word,  ''Go,  be  free,  and  sin  no  more."  What 
became  of  the  woman  we  do  not  know,  but  we  may  be 
sure  that  to  her  dying  day  she  never  remembered 
without  gratitude  and  tears  the  morning  when  she 
stood  alone  with  Jesus  in  the  courts  of  the  Lord. 

I  will  mention  one  other  feature  of  this  interesting 
story,  and  that  is  the  lesson  of  humility  and  self- 
examination  which  it  reads  to  all  of  us  who  are  seek- 
ing to  reform  others  and  purify  society.     Perhaps 


JESUS  HIDING  HIS  FACE  149 

these  Pharisees  thought  they  were  doing  society  a 
service  by  dragging  this  woman  before  Jesus,  but 
they  soon  learned  there  was  little  real  difference  be- 
tween themselves  and  their  prisoner,  and  that  a  pri- 
mary service  to  society  for  them  to  perform  lay  in 
their  own  hearts  and  lives.  ''He  that  is  without  sin 
among  you,  let  him  first  cast  a  stone  at  her."  My 
friends,  if  we  feel  that  we  are  standing  on  a  platform 
of  superiority  over  others  and  are  entitled  to  ap- 
proach the  unfortunate  in  the  "I  am  better  than 
thou"  spirit,  then  we  are  become  the  Pharisees  and 
lie  under  the  challenge,  ''He  that  is  without  sin 
among  you. "  I  do  not  think  that  any  person  has  any 
right  or  power  to  do  anything  for  the  most  degraded 
man  or  woman  except  in  a  spirit  of  love  and  lowli- 
ness. In  dealing  with  a  drunkard  for  example,  you 
and  I  have  no  right  to  look  down  upon  him  and  lay 
the  lash  of  condemnation  upon  his  sin  as  if  we  were 
his  moral  superiors.  Suppose  you  and  I  never  have 
fallen  victims  to  intemperance.  Suppose  we  have  al- 
ways been  surrounded  by  such  elevating  conditions 
in  life  that  the  temptation  to  drink  has  never  really 
assailed  us.  But  have  we  not  inwardly  our  own  guilt 
and  iniquity  great  as  this,  and  do  we  know  where  we 
should  be  now  outwardly  if  we  had  lived  in  the  en- 
vironment in  which  many  are  living  and  which  is 
a  constant  force  of  gravity  to  drag  them  down  ? 

And  who  is  responsible  for  the  debasing  environ- 
ment? Whose  is  the  guilt  of  creating  and  upholding 
social  conditions  which  as  good  as  compel  the  poor  to 


150  JESUS  HIDING  HIS  FACE 

be  not  only  poor  but  dissolute,  criminal  and  besotted  ? 
Has  God  made  this  mire  in  which  men  and  women  are 
living  and  bidden  them  wallow  and  flounder  in  it? 
No,  my  friends,  God  never  made  it.  We  have  done 
it.  Know  it  well,  we  are  guilty.  Society  is  guilty. 
The  rich  are  responsible  for  the  sins  of  the  poor.  The 
respectable  are  responsible  for  the  sins  of  those  whose 
respect  is  gone.  You  and  I  are  sharers  in  the  down- 
fall of  men  and  women  in  this  city.  And  not  until 
we  have  improved  the  conditions  of  the  poor  and 
criminal  classes,  not  until  we  have  placed  within  their 
reach  the  physical  advantages  and  rational  enjoy- 
ments which  have  saved  us  from  degradation,  can  we 
cast  a  single  stone  in  the  sight  of  Jesus  Christ  at  any 
thief  or  drunkard  or  harlot. 

I  rejoice  that  thoughtful  men  and  women  both  in 
the  Church  and  out  of  it  are  beginning  to  realize 
this.  We  are  beginning  to  grasp  the  fact  that  human 
lives  cannot  be  isolated  from  one  another,  but  all  are 
bound  up  in  the  human  race.  "We  are  all  partners 
without  our  choice  in  each  other 's  health  and  sickness, 
in  each  other's  joy  and  sorrow,  in  each  other's  wisdom 
and  folly,  in  each  other's  righteousness  and  wicked- 
ness. Other  men  are  making  life  blessed  or  sad  for 
us.  We  are  making  life  blessed  or  sad  for  others. 
There  is  a  solidarity  of  the  human  race.  The  highest 
and  the  lowest,  the  richest  and  the  poorest,  the  best 
and  the  worst  are  bound  together  in  an  inseparable 
partnership.     We  are  keepers  of  one  another. 

Brethren,  I  invite  you  to  enter  this  larger  relation- 


JESUS  HIDING  HIS  FACE  151 

ship  and  closer  fellowship  with  humanity.  I  invite 
you  to  walk  in  the  light  of  this  higher  vision.  I  in- 
vite you  to  welcome  this  nobler  destiny  and  richer 
partnership  with  your  brother  men  and  Elder  Brother 
Christ.  For  those  who  will  not  do  this,  who  will  only 
seek  their  own  things  in  their  own  selfish  way,  there 
is  a  sure  condemnation.  To  those  who  see  the  face  of 
truth  and  have  her  beauty  revealed  to  them  she  be- 
comes a  judge  that 

''Parts  the  goats  upon  the  left  hand  and  the  sheep  upon  the 
right — 
And  the  choice  goes  by  forever  'twixt  that  darkness  and  that 
Hghf 


CONTENTMENT. 

"I  have  learned,  in  whatsoever  state  I  am,  therewith  to  be 
content.'^    Philippians  4:  11. 

Was  the  lesson  worth  the  learning  ?  Is  contentment 
always  so  desirable  a  thing  ?  Ought  one  to  be  content 
in  whatever  state  he  is?  Is  it  so  that  heights  are 
climbed  and  garlands  plucked?  One  of  Charles 
Kingsley's  best  utterances  was  in  praise  of  discon- 
tent. When  our  Lord  said,  ''Blessed  are  they  that 
hunger  and  thirst,'^  He  made  discontent  a  beatitude. 
Full  of  the  cries  of  a  sublime  discontent  are  David's 
Psalms,  St.  Paul's  Epistles,  St.  Augustine's  Confes- 
sions, the  lives  and  writings  of  all  great  divine  souls. 
Discontent  is  the  sense  of  want,  the  spur  of  advance- 
ment, the  soul  of  aspiration,  the  distinguishing  mark 
of  a  lofty  and  growing  spirit.  Said  Robert  Hall,  ''I 
am  constantly  tormented  with  a  desire  to  preacli 
better  sermons  than  I  can."  ''And  because  he  was 
so  tormented,"  remarks  a  modern  author,  "he  preach- 
ed better  sermons  than  any  man  alive. ' ' 

Give  a  Guinea  negro  plenty  of  sunshine  to  lie  in 


Preached  in  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  Binghamton,  1883 
and  1884;  also  in  these  churches:  Central  Presbyterian,  Rochester, 
1884;  Brick  Presbyterian,  Rochester,  1885;  Presbyterian,  Rye,  N. 
Y.,  1885;  Central  Presbyterian,  Denver,  1888  and  1898;  Second  Pres- 
byterian, Scranton,  1889;  Presbyterian,  Owego,  N.  Y.,  1891;  New 
York  Avenue  Presbyterian,  Washington,  D.  C,  1895;  Binghamton 
State  Hospital  for  the  Insane,  1895;  First  Presbyterian,  Buffalo, 
1896;  Central  Presbyterian,  Rochester,  1896;  Immanuel  Presby- 
terian, Milwaukee,  1897;  First  Presbyterian,  Englewood,  N.  J., 
1898;  First  Presbyterian,  Milwaukee,  1898;  First  Presbyterian, 
Binghamton,  1898;  Central  Presbyterian,  Denver,  1898. 

152 


CONTENTMENT  153 

and  plenty  of  pineapple  to  eat,  and  you  have  a  picture 
of  contentment,  grinning,  grunting  contentment.  But 
where  were  our  civilization,  our  sciences,  our  pro- 
gress, our  works  of  improvement  and  advancement, 
if  men  and  women  were  just  as  willing  to  lie  in 
nakedness  and  dirt  as  in  independence  and  beautiful 
conditions?  It  is  perfectly  certain  that  every  one  of 
us  ought  to  be  deeply  and  increasingly  discontented 
with  himself,  with  his  past  attainments,  with  his  pres- 
ent efforts  and  accomplishments.  He  ought  to  set  his 
heart  with  urgent  unappeased  desire  upon  doing 
better  work  than  he  does  and  upon  being  a  better 
man  than  he  is.  Of  that  kind  of  discontent  no  one 
ever  had  too  much,  and  no  one  ever  had  more  than 
the  eager  aspiring  spirit  who  penned  the  text,  whose 
image,  whose  characteristic  attitude,  was  that  of  a 
runner,  eye  and  hand  flung  forward,  forgetting  the 
things  that  were  behind,  reaching  forth  unto  the 
things  that  were  before. 

Is  there  no  such  thing  then  as  true  content?  Is 
there  no  such  blessing  as  the  tranquil  mind?  I  think 
there  is.  ''Am  I  discontented  with  myself  or  with 
things  which  are  not  myself?''  asked  Epictetus.  A 
very  significant  question,  though  it  came  from  the 
lips  of  a  heathen  slave.  To  be  well  satisfied  with 
themselves,  yet  full  of  all  dissatisfactions  and  com- 
plaints because  things  outside  of  them  are  not  to  their 
liking,  this  is  the  content  and  discontent  of  a  great 
many  people.  To  have  ceased  to  be  greatly  troubled 
about  things  outside  of  him  because  he  was  struggling 


154  CONTENTMENT 

for  good  things  inside  and  striving  to  do  more  of 
God's  will  and  grow  a  better  man  day  by  day,  this 
was  the  content  and  discontent  of  St.  Paul. 

We  must  not  think  that  the  mere  absence  of  desires 
constitutes  contentment.  ''If  you  would  have  a  con- 
tented mind,"  said  the  old  philosopher,  ''cut  your 
desires  down  to  the  measure  of  your  supplies."  An 
impossible  rule  in  the  first  place,  and  in  the  next  pro- 
ductive of  nothing  but  a  counterfeit  contentment. 
Diogenes  in  his  tub  was  a  stubborn  man  and  a  cynical 
man,  but  a  contented  man  he  never  was.  The  hermit 
who  reduces  his  wants  to  a  cell  in  the  ground  and  a 
little  bread  and  water  to  dull  the  edge  of  his  appetite 
has  a  semblance  of  contentment,  but  it  is  no  more  like 
the  high  shining  serenity  of  mind  which  St.  Paul 
possessed  than  high  noon  is  like  starless  night.  The 
fact  is  there  can  be  no  real  contentment  except  there 
be  the  possibility  of  its  opposite,  except  there  be 
strong  desires,  urgent  wants,  and  the  hope  of  satisfy- 
ing them  when  God  shall  see  fit  to  open  the  way.  To 
be  happy  in  our  present  position  whatever  it  be,  and 
yet  ready  and  thankful  to  rise  out  of  it  into  a  higher 
and  better^  to  be  able  to  live  in  sweet  peace  of  mind 
in  a  small  house,  with  a  narrow  income,  and  yet 
prefer  to  live  in  a  larger  one  and  have  a  comfortable 
support,  to  wait  patiently  when  waiting  is  God's  will 
and  to  enjoy  heartily  when  enjoyment  is  given,  to 
carry  the  fuU  cup  with  a  steady  hand  and  to  accept 
the  bitter  one  with  a  tranquil  spirit,  in  short,  not  to 
lay  too  great  stress  upon  secular  advantages  one  way 


CONTENTMENT  155 

or  the  other,  but  to  be  above  them  and  keep  them 
hanging  quite  loose  about  us,  this  I  think  is  the  prob- 
lem of  true  contentment. 

And  the  solution  of  it  is  certainly  not  to  eradicate 
the  desires,  not  to  petrify  the  soul  into  a  state  of  in- 
sensibility, but  rather  to  have  something  within  the 
soul  itself  so  much  higher  and  more  precious  than 
anything  without  that  life's  evils  shall  no  longer 
seem  unendurable  or  its  goods  indispensable.  You 
have  seen  a  young  man  going  into  business,  his  heart 
kindled  with  enthusiasm,  his  eye  fixed  upon  the  sum- 
mit of  his  chosen  occupation.  How  content  he  was 
to  miss  many  of  the  pleasures  in  which  he  formerly 
delighted,  because  of  other  stronger  attractions  which 
had  entered  into  him.  The  artist,  the  poet,  the  scholar 
are  content  to  be  poor  in  money  values,  because  con- 
scious of  being  rich  in  the  higher  values  of  creative 
power  and  ideal  beauty. 

But  the  word  itself  contains  its  own  solution. 
The  exact  sense  of  the  Greek  word  aiitarJces  is  self- 
sufficing,  self-supporting,  independent.  Thucydides 
uses  it  to  describe  a  city  which  subsists  on  its  own 
resources  and  does  not  require  to  import  anything. 
Like  our  own  word  contented,  which  properly  means 
contained,  it  denotes  a  mind  which  does  not  overflow 
and  run  about  for  its  happiness,  but  finds  a  living 
fountain  of  satisfying  good  ever  open  at  its  door  and 
springing  up  at  its  feet.  The  lake  which  is  supplied 
from  its  own  depths  has  a  contented  face.  The  stars 
which  bum  with  an  inward  illumination  are  images 


156  CONTENTMENT 

of  fathomless  content.  God  is  absolute  contentment, 
because  bis  is  a  nature  absolutely  self-sufficing.  So 
the  truly  contented  soul  is  one  who  finds  his  own  inner 
being  self-sufficing  still,  whatever  his  outward  condi- 
tions, and  is  therefore  independent  of  outward  condi- 
tions, independent  of  other  persons,  independent  of 
all  save  God  Himself. 

I  know  some  of  us  are  incredulous  about  this.  "We 
cannot  recognize  the  truth  that  contentment  is  essen- 
tially an  inward  thing.  We  think  circumstances  make 
the  difference.  We  complaia  of  our  lot.  We  charge 
our  restless  repining  dissatisfied  feelings  to  our  ex- 
ternal conditions  and  to  the  treatment  we  receive  at 
the  hand  of  others.  We  feel  confident  that  if  some 
fortune  were  to  raise  us  up  to  eminence  and  sur- 
round us  with  affluence,  full  streams  of  contentment 
would  flow  in  upon  us  from  every  side.  But  we  know 
not  what  we  ask.  Our  wishes  realized  would  only  in- 
crease the  troubles  they  are  expected  to  remove.  De- 
pend upon  it,  we  shall  never  heal  the  open  sore  of  the 
heart's  discontent  until  we  come  back  to  the  heart 
itself  and  change  somewhat  there.  A  weak  peevish 
irritable  complaining  soul  can  no  more  find  content- 
ment by  improving  his  outward  condition  than  a 
man  in  a  fever  can  find  a  cool  place  by  turning  from 
side  to  side  in  his  bed.  But  reduce  the  temperature 
and  any  side  will  be  cool  enough.  Full  of  profound 
truth  though  mingled  with  sadness  was  the  confes- 
sion of  poor  Oliver  Goldsmith, 


CONTENTMENT  157 

"Vain,  very  vain,  my  search  to  find 
The  bliss  which  only  centres  in  the  mind/' 

True  interior  contentment,  need  I  say  it,  is  one  of 
the  highest,  richest  acquisitions  which  any  one  of  us 
can  possibly  make.  The  old  philosophers  and  poets 
had  a  good  appreciation  of  its  lower  values  and  often 
dwelt  upon  them.  ' '  A  contented  mind  is  the  greatest 
and  surest  riches,''  says  Cicero.  It  is  the  true  answer 
to  the  soul's  great  search  for  happiness,  says  Horace; 
though  elsewhere  he  indicates  the  difficulty  of  coming 
to  it  in  the  question,  "How  happens  it,  Maecenas,  that 
nobody  lives  contented  in  the  lot  assigned  to  him  by 
God?"  ''God  hath  appointed  one  remedy,"  says  an- 
other, ''for  all  the  evils  in  the  world,  a  contented 
spirit. ' ' 

Still  higher  considerations  recommend  it  to  us  to 
whom  the  mystery  of  the  divine  life  has  been  given. 
Contentment  is  the  primary  substance  of  spirituality, 
the  very  atmosphere  in  which  holiness  is  realized. 
Pleasing  to  God,  helpful  to  others,  and  an  unspeak- 
able treasure  to  its  possessor  is  a  mind  centered  in 
deep  sweet  measureless  content.  He  who  possesses 
true  interior  contentment  is  fortified  in  an  impreg- 
nable castle,  and  that  castle  is  his  own  soul.  What 
can  fortune  or  misfortune,  success  or  failure,  the 
world's  favors  or  frowns  do  to  a  man  whose  good 
things  are  all  inside  of  his  own  soul  ?  Whatever  man 
may  think  about  him  or  do  to  him,  the  whole  universe 
is  his.  We  are  told  how  Jean  Paul  Eichter,  the  German 
poet,  was  excluded  from  the  aristocratic  circle  of  the 


158  CONTENTMENT 

little  town  of  Hof .  It  seems  he  did  not  belong  to  their 
set.  They  blackballed  him.  "Whereupon,  remarks 
Carlyle,  ''As  he  could  not  be  admitted  to  the  West 
End  of  Hof,  he  was  obliged  to  take  up  his  quarters 
at  the  "West  End  of  the  universe,  where  indeed  he  had 
a  splendid  reception." 

But  now  how  to  have  true  inward  contentment; 
how  to  be  free  from  vague  longings,  repining  hours, 
complaining  moods,  how  to  have  what  one  calls  the 
temporal  heaven  of  a  contented  mind,  the  best  evi- 
dence that  we  are  making  sure  progress  toward  the 
infinite  eternal  heaven  at  God's  right  hand?  The 
text  gives  us  a  hint,  *'I  have  learned,  in  whatsoever 
state  I  am,  therewith  to  be  content."  He  did  not 
inherit  it  by  nature,  he  learned  it.  It  was  not  given 
him  at  conversion,  he  learned  it  afterwards.  God 
taught  it  to  him  as  He  teaches  docile  souls  so  much  of 
their  best  wisdom,  in  the  school  of  life  and  experience. 
Vain,  very  vain  and  presumptuous,  my  brother,  would 
it  be  for  me  to  attempt  to  teach  you  or  myself  the 
lesson  of  contentment.  Only  God  can  teach  the  lesson. 
But  we  can  study,  if  we  will,  the  ways  by  which  He 
is  teaching  it  and  perhaps  point  out  some  of  the 
helps  for  its  speedier  learning. 

One  of  these  helps  which  has  been  of  use  to  others 
is  to  distinguish  more  thoughtfully  than  we  do  be- 
tween the  real  and  the  adventitious  blessings  of  life. 
When  one  thinks  upon  it,  the  really  great  blessings 
of  existence  are  not  so  unevenly  distributed  after  all. 
What  are  God's  great  gifts?    Life,  health,  sleep,  suit- 


CONTENTMENT  159 

able  food  and  clothing,  knowledge,  work,  friendship,  a 
good  conscience  and  the  grace  of  Jesus  Christ.  Well, 
what  class  or  rank  in  society  has  any  monopoly  of 
these  things  ?  Are  they  not  bestowed  like  the  air  and 
sunlight,  like  the  beauties  of  nature  and  the  blessings 
of  the  gospel,  upon  high  and  low,  rich  and  poor  alike  ? 
And  yet  these  universal  gifts  are  the  great  things,  the 
only  essential  elements  of  either  greatness,  goodness, 
or  happiness. 

True,  there  are  other  things.  There  are  rich  in- 
comes, but  what  makes  a  noble  life,  high  enthusiasm 
or  ten  thousand  a  year?  There  are  palatial  resi- 
dences, but  what  makes  a  home,  love  or  fine  parlors? 
There  are  splendid  equipages,  but  what  makes  a 
journey,  an  intelligent  eye  or  a  luxurious  carriage? 
There  is  elegant  apparel,  but  what  makes  a  lady, 
costly  dress  or  a  beautiful  soul?  ''And  having  food 
and  raiment,"  says  the  apostle,  ''let  us  therewith  be 
content."  It  is  an  enforcement  of  the  truth  upon 
which  we  are  dwelling,  the  truth  that  the  common 
gifts  of  life  are  the  great  ones,  the  truth  that  content- 
ment is  not  hidden  in  the  clouds  or  secreted  in  the 
depths  of  the  sea,  but  like  the  manna  in  the  camp 
of  the  Israelites  falls  from  heaven  right  about  us  in 
the  blessings  of  every  day.  The  healthful  counte- 
nance, the  sunny  spirit,  the  warm  grasp  of  love, 
the  pleasures  of  work,  of  nature  and  of  books,  the 
consciousness  of  doing  good  and  the  hopes  of  heaven, 
he  who  has  these  things  has  the  fresh  and  perennial 
springs  of  content.     And  he  who  has  them  and  yet 


160  CONTENTMENT 

chooses  to  turn  away  from  them  and  sit  down  on  his 
little  bundle  of  thorns  is  fit  to  bear  the  moping  owl 
company,  who  with  sunshine  all  around  him  com- 
plains that  there  is  nothing  to  see  or  to  enjoy. 

Another  admirable  help  to  contentment  is  found  in 
the  Apostle's  precept,  **Be  content  with  such  things 
as  you  have;''  the  true  force  of  which  is,  set  a  just 
valuation  upon  the  things  which  you  have  and  do  not 
be  always  looking  upon  and  magnifying  things  which 
others  have  and  you  have  not.  It  is  an  infirmity  to 
which  the  noblest  minds  are  subject  to  fix  the  eye 
upon  things  which  they  have  not  and  estimate  their 
worth  by  the  distance  of  their  removal.  We  overvalue 
the  things  we  desire  and  undervalue  the  things  we 
possess.  While  we  have  an  object  in  pursuit  we  see 
nothing  but  its  attractions,  when  we  have  it  in  pos- 
session we  are  apt  to  see  little  but  its  defects.  But 
it  is  the  part  of  a  thoughtful  Christian  to  rise  su- 
perior to  these  illusions  of  the  mind  and  be  much 
taken  up  with  the  things  God  has  given  us;  to  con- 
sider how  valuable  they  are  to  us,  how  precious,  how 
comforting,  how  much  worse  off  we  would  be  without 
them,  and  how  many  persons  long  for  just  what 
we  have  and  would  be  glad  with  all  their  hearts  to 
exchange  for  our  possessions  the  very  things  which  we 
have  envied  them.  Ah,  friends,  if  we  would  but  take 
our  eyes  and  hearts  off  the  things  we  have  not,  and 
let  gratitude  count  up  the  blessings  we  have  and  love 
taste  the  goodness  we  have  and  happiness  enjoy  the 
comforts  we  have,  we  should  oftener  than  we  do  speak 


CONTENTMENT  161 

to  one  another  that  old  beautiful  word  which  in  this 
restless  age  falls  upon  the  ear  like  a  voice  out  of  an- 
other world,  ''Because  God  hath  dealt  graciously  with 
me,  and  because  I  have  enough/' 

Still  another  help  to  contentment  is  to  compare 
what  we  have  with  what  we  deserve.  We  are  fond 
of  drawing  comparisons,  but  not  of  this  kind.  We 
run  over  in  our  thoughts  our  neighbors,  our  richer 
neighbors  not  our  poorer  ones,  and  are  filled  with 
envy  and  discontent  at  seeing  others  no  better  than 
ourselves  having  so  much  more  than  we  have  of  the 
world's  wealth,  honor,  ease,  reputation.  But  how 
much  humbler  as  well  as  happier  we  would  be  if  in- 
stead of  looking  sidewise  at  our  neighbors  and  finding 
cause  of  offense  in  God's  dealings  with  them,  we  were 
in  the  habit  of  musing  over  God's  good  providences 
toward  ourselves  and  finding  in  them,  as  Jacob  did, 
cause  for  wonder,  love  and  praise.  ' '  I  am  not  worthy 
of  the  least  of  all  the  mercies  and  all  the  truth  which 
thou  hast  showed  unto  thy  servant." 

Of  all  that  any  one  of  us  is  enjoying  at  this  moment 
what  he  has  deserved?  Has  he  deserved  life,  or 
health,  or  strength,  or  reason,  or  happiness?  Has  he 
put  God  under  the  slightest  obligation  to  give  him 
the  pleasures  of  home,  relatives,  friends,  education, 
the  Bible,  the  Church?  Or  is  each  and  every  one  of 
these  things  a  pure  gratuity  undeservedly  given  and 
day  by  day  continued  to  him  by  God's  mercy?  Ah, 
if  we  would  only  think  what  that  means  which  the 
prophet  Jeremiah  says  we  should  never  again  be  dis- 


162  CONTENTMENT 

contented.  ''It  is  of  the  Lord's  mercies — /'  What? 
That  we  have  so  many  things  to  enjoy  ?  No,  not  that. 
That  we  are  kept  from  so  much  misery?  No.  That 
we  are  not  beaten  with  many  stripes?  No.  ''It  is 
of  the  Lord's  mercies  that  we  are  not  consumed." 

But  after  all,  the  great  stay  of  the  contented  spirit 
must  ever  be  its  faith,  its  trust  in  the  Almighty.  ' '  Be 
content  with  present  things, ' '  says  the  Apostle, ' '  for  he 
hath  said,  I  will  never  leave  you  nor  forsake  you." 
By  what  can  a  person  who  really  holds  that  assurance 
from  a  faithful  omnipotent  creator  ever  be  disquieted  ? 
If  God  be  for  him  what  can  be  against  him?  Life 
passes.  I  know  it  as  well  as  you.  Eiches  fly,  popu- 
larity wanes,  friends  die,  the  world  changes.  But 
One  is  constant.  One  is  true.  One  changes  not.  One 
can  do  all  things  for  us.  Where  we  are  He  has  placed 
us.  What  we  have  He  has  given  us.  Whither  we 
go  He  leads  us.  He  strengthens  and  upholds  us  by 
day  and  by  night.  He  keeps  guard  and  thinks  upon 
us.  0,  it  is  in  such  hours  as  we  have  been  thinking 
upon  God  and  have  heard  coming  down  through  the 
depth  of  our  souls  His  whispered  voice,  "My  child, 
I  have  loved  you,"  that  all  the  fears  and  anxieties 
and  perils  that  often  come  thick  about  this  mortal 
life  have  vanished  away  and  we  have  looked  up  in 
strange  wonder  and  said,  "Lord,  it  is  enough,  I  am 
content." 

But  if  faith  in  God  brings  occasional  tides  of  con- 
tent, acquaintance  with  Him  and  service  of  Him  in 
Jesus  Christ  brings  its  steady  continuous  flow.     The 


CONTENTMENT  163 

saintly  painter,  Angelico,  traced  his  glowing  con- 
ceptions upon  the  cells  of  San  Marco,  and  those  who 
visit  Florence  are  arrested  and  thrilled  by  the  purity 
of  his  dreams.  But  he  who  has  stood  before  the 
Cross,  he  who  has  seen  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ,  has 
seen  a  vision  of  such  matchless  purity  and  penetrat- 
ing power  as  throws  the  pictured  dreams  of  Angelico 
into  dim  and  shadowy  faintness.  He  has  seen  in  one 
soul-subduing  sight  the  wondrous  love  of  God  and  the 
wondrous  sacredness  of  man.  0  brother,  sister,  it 
seems  to  me  that  I  perceive  now  where  St.  Paul 
learned  the  lesson  of  contentment.  It  began  to  spring 
up  within  him  in  his  first  vision  of  the  Crucified  on 
that  summer  noonday  before  the  ancient  city  of  Da- 
mascus. Henceforth  his  life  was  changed.  One 
Vision  illuminated  the  whole  pathway  of  life.  One 
Face  transfigured  all.  One  purpose,  one  allegiance, 
one  devotion  seized  him,  to  impress  that  Glory  upon 
a  sinning,  sorrowing  world,  to  carry  out  the  objects 
of  that  Life  and  fill  the  earth  with  the  love  and 
loveliness  of  that  Vision.  His  was  the  contentment 
of  a  soul  lost  like  his  Master's  in  self-sacrifice  and 
consecration. 

0,  to  think  that  there  are  men  and  women  in  this 
world,  perchance  on  this  sanctuary  floor,  who  in  no 
sense  love  and  serve  Jesus  Christ,  this  is  to  waken  up 
to  the  truth  that  there  are  men  and  women  who  have 
no  deep  interior  contentment  because  no  deep  in- 
terior love  and  devotion.  It  is  to  waken  up  to  the 
fact  that  there  are  men  and  women  surrounded  by 


164  CONTENTMENT 

all  the  comfort  that  life  can  offer,  health,  fortune, 
friends,  and  yet  petty,  peevish,  irritable,  fretted  by 
the  slightest  annoyance,  simply  because  their  feelings 
and  energies  are  all  pent  up  in  themselves,  all  boiling 
in  their  own  bosoms,  not  drawn  out  in  any  worthy  ef- 
fort, not  absorbed  in  any  supreme  love. 
**Some  murmur,''  says  the  poet, 

''If  one  small  speck  of  dark  appear 
In  their  great  heaven  of  blue; 
And  some  with  thankful  love  are  filled 
If  but  one  streak  of  light, 
One  ray  of  God's  good  mercy,  gild 
The  darkness  of  their  night." 


ON  TAKING  A  REST. 

''Eest  in  the  Lord.''    Psalm  37:  7. 

The  golden  midsummer  days  are  upon  us.  The 
ardent  sun  overflows  earth  and  sky  with  heat  and 
splendor.  The  hills  and  valleys  stand  clothed  in  rich- 
est verdure.  The  airs  are  drowsy,  the  clouds  are 
dreamy,  the  woods  are  full  of  mystery,  the  sunsets 
are  vistas  of  glory.  It  is  the  season  of  fervors  and 
odors,  the  season  of  long  days  and  full  harmonies, 
above  all  the  season  of  deep  tranquilities  and  ''the 
old  immortal  peace  that  comes  with  summer  tide.'* 
The  tone  of  spring  is  life  and  energy,  the  tone  of 
autumn  is  pensiveness  and  decay,  the  tone  of  winter 
is  fierceness  and  storm,  but  restfulness  and  repose 
is  the  tone  of  summer.  The  winds  are  light  and 
gentle,  the  streams  flow  with  a  lulling  music,  the 
notes  of  the  birds  are  soft  and  liquid,  the  groves 
are  still  and  soothing,  the  flocks  of  clouds  above,  like 
the  flocks  below,  congregate  slowly.  All  things  seem 
to  exist  in  a  tideless  expansion  of  peace,  an  image  of 
that  above. 

' '  If  here  on  earth  such  blessed  peace  may  be, 
Though  known  so  transiently. 
How  deep  the  peace  of  God  that  folds  eternity! 
There  also  happy  souls  in  summer's  glow 

Are  led  where  waters  flow, 
And  find  the  new  born  earth  like  earth  of  long  ago. 


Preached  in  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  Binghamton,  1904. 
165 


166  TAKING  A  REST 

The  message  from  this  pulpit  is  usually  a  gospel 
of  work  or  a  gospel  of  grace.  It  is  rarely,  perhaps 
too  rarely,  a  gospel  of  rest.  Perhaps  it  would  be 
better  if  our  congregations,  which  are  always  gathered 
to  hear  what  they  can  do  for  God,  were  oftener  called 
to  rest  in  what  God  has  done  for  them  and  in  God 
Himself.  At  any  rate  here  at  the  close  of  a  year  of 
hastening  months  and  increasing  duties,  when  nature 
is  breathing  restful  influences  all  around,  I  feel  the 
call  to  rest  and  am  come  to  you  this  morning  with  a 
plea  for  summer  blessing. 

Beyond  doubt  work  is  the  great  purpose  of  life  and 
a  chief  source  of  human  happiness.  Without  any- 
thing to  do  in  it,  this  world  would  be  a  miserable 
place.  Life  unoccupied,  life  listless,  purposeless, 
dawdled  away  in  perpetual  idleness,  would  be  a  dread- 
ful burden.  ^'My  happiest  days,"  said  a  wise  man, 
''have  been  those  in  which  I  had  most  work  to  do 
with  sufficient  health  and  strength  to  do  it. ' '  We  do 
not  work  in  order  to  rest;  we  rest  in  order  to  work. 
If  we  do  put  rest  before  us  as  the  end  we  never  gain  it, 
or  if  we  do  we  are  never  happy  in  its  possession. 
Work  is  the  end,  rest  is  the  means.  Worn  is  the 
privilege,  rest  is  the  necessity.  Rest  is  a  necessity  in 
this  life  at  least.  In  another  world  we  believe  that 
work  itself  will  be  restful  and  recuperative  without 
any  effect  of  weariness  or  feeling  of  exhaustion.  We 
read  of  the  blessed  ones  above  that  they  do  Him  serv- 
ice, they  serve  Him  day  and  night  in  His  temple. 
But  here  for  every  one  of  us  rest  is  a  necessity.    No 


TAKING  A  REST  167 

one  has  such  resources  of  strength  that  he  does  not 
need  from  time  to  time  a  new  baptism  of  freshness 
and  vigor. 

It  is  an  inexorable  law  of  nature  that  periods  of 
intensity  must  be  followed  by  periods  of  relaxation, 
working  hours  by  hours  of  sleep,  long  applications 
of  work  by  intervals  of  rest.  The  bow  cannot  always 
be  kept  bent.  The  horse  cannot  be  driven  at  the  top 
of  his  speed  all  day  long.  Too  frequent  and  too 
solemn  are  the  warnings  given  us  that  the  laws  of 
nature  cannot  be  disregarded  with  impunity,  and 
that  the  overdriven  must  come  to  a  standstill.  Never 
perhaps  in  the  history  of  the  world  has  the  necessity 
of  rest  been  so  imperative  as  now.  "All  things  are 
full  of  labor,"  said  Solomon  in  his  day.  What  he 
would  say  if  he  were  living  now,  when  men  have  what 
is  called  the  bicycle  eye,  the  automobile  face,  and  the 
twentieth  century  eagerness  and  strenuousness,  I  do 
not  know.  Life  in  too  many  instances  is  a  run,  a  rush, 
and  a  wreck.  While  I  am  speaking  you  have  before 
your  minds  some  case  of  a  noble  life  brought  to  a 
sudden  and  untimely  end  by  neglecting  the  necessity 
of  rest,  some  sad  memory  of  a  brilliant  intellect  and 
eager  heart  and  intense  nature  strained  until  the 
break  came,  never  to  be  repaired  on  earth,  and  the 
work  which  with  greater  moderation  might  have  gone 
on  a  long  time  was  arrested  in  the  height  of  its  pro- 
gress. 

But  rest  is  not  only  a  physical  necessity.  It  is  an 
intellectual  and  moral  reinforcement.     The  body  and 


168  TAKING  A  REST 

mind  are  so  intimately  wedded  that  whatever  invigor- 
ates the  one  gives  new  force  to  the  other.  It  is  won- 
derful how  much  is,  gained  by  both  body  and  mind 
in  sleep.  He  who  sleeps  is  born  anew.  No  hard 
thinker  but  knowsi  how  the  mind  that  drags  heavily 
at  night  often  issues  from  the  womb  of  the  morning 
a  new  creature.  We  have  a  habit  of  saying  in  regard 
to  an  important  question  or  decision,  *'I  will  sleep 
over  it  and  let  you  know  in  the  morning."  There  is 
more  in  that  than  seems.  It  is  not  merely  more  time 
that  is  gained  but  more  light,  more  vision.  During 
the  rest  of  the  night  the  confusions  of  the  brain  re- 
arrange themselves,  its  perplexities  clear  up,  its  spent 
energies  flow  back  and  gather  in,  and  the  man  emerges 
in  the  morning  into  a  more  lucid  state  and  considers 
the  question  from  a  truer  point  of  view.  How  often 
difficulties  of  thought  and  obstacles  of  expression  in- 
superable at  night  yield  readily  to  a  few  moments' 
application  in  the  morning  every  one  knows. 

This  is  even  more  true  of  those  longer  periods  of 
rest  which  give  the  mind  more  full  restoration.  It 
is  a  mistake  to  think  that  the  mind  receives  nothing 
except  when  engaged  in  deliberate  effort.  There  is  an 
unconscious  cerebration,  an  involuntary  secretion  of 
vital  forces  and  dewy  freshness  in  times  when  the 
yoke  is  lifted  off  the  neck  and  the  spirit  unbends  at 
liberty,  that  is  among  the  most  valuable  of  the  mind's 
acquisitions.  Many  are  the  hard-worked  business 
men  who  are  now  leaving  their  stores  and  counting 
rooms  behind  them,  many  are  the  weary  professional 


TAKING  A  REST  169 

men  and  women  who  are  leaving  their  clients,  pa- 
tients, schools  and  churches  behind  them,  with  dark 
discouraged  feelings,  who  will  come  again  from  their 
quiet  resting  places  by  and  by  with  bright  counte- 
nances and  fresh  invigorations,  prepared  for  higher 
service  and  heavier  burdens. 

But  rest  is  not  only  a  physical  necessity  and  an  in- 
tellectual reinforcement.  It  is  a  part  of  religion. 
It  often  happens  that  a  person  finds  himself  sinking 
down  into  states  of  impatience,  irritableness,  despond- 
ency and  irresolution  from  nothing  else  but  the  want 
of  rest.  Whenever  I  speak  on  this  subject  I  am 
made  to  think  of  that  tired  out  man  in  the  old  Bible 
story — that  man  of  unflinching  courage,  iron  pur- 
pose, and  nerve  of  steel,  lying  under  the  juniper 
tree,  his  arms  relaxed,  his  head  bowed  forward  be- 
tween his  knees,  his  face  the  picture  of  despair  and 
himself  asking  for  death  as  the  only  exit  from  his 
woe  and  wretchedness.  **It  is  enough;  now,  0 
Lord,  take  away  my  life ;  for  I  am  not  better  than  my 
fathers."  A  most  false  and  unworthy  state  of  mind 
for  a  man  to  be  in  no  doubt,  especially  a  prophet  of 
the  Lord  who  had  been  divinely  honored  as  he  had. 
You  are  ready  to  say,  perhaps,  that  his  most  fitting 
exercise  is  penitence  and  prayer.  Not  so  thought  He 
who  understood  His  servant's  case  and  knew  what 
was  necessary  to  restore  him.  He  knew  that  the 
spiritual  bow  had  been  bent  too  long  already.  Once, 
twice  did  the  angel  of  the  Lord  come  with  refreshing 
food  and  bend  over  the  poor  tired  spirit,  saying, 


170  TAKING  A  EEST 

** Arise  and  eat;  because  the  journey  is  too  great  for 
thee/'  and  then  when  he  had  eaten  give  him  back 
again  into  the  arms  of  nature's  sweet  restorer,  deep 
sleep. 

We  are  apt  to  think  that  religion  should  always 
be  a  struggle,  that  religious  services  should  always 
brace  the  will,  stimulate  the  energies,  arouse  the 
conscience  and  impel  the  soul,  but  it  is  not  so.  That 
we  should  forget  the  things  that  are  behind  and  reach 
forth  unto  the  things  that  are  before  and  press 
toward  the  mark  for  the  prize  of  our  high  calling 
I  do  most  earnestly  believe.  But  that  we  should  be 
always  doing  this,  always  striving  to  broaden  our 
knowledge,  always  laboring  to  deepen  our  penitence, 
always  gazing  at  the  heights  of  purity  we  have  not 
yet  reached,  always  thinking  on  the  millions  whom 
the  Gospel  has  not  yet  blessed,  I  do  not  believe.  St. 
Paul  was  not  always  doing  this.  There  are  whole 
epistles  of  his  in  which  his  mind  is  chiefly  taken 
up  in  resting  and  rejoicing  in  what  God  has  done 
already.  God  has  done  great  things  already,  and  it  is 
a  poor  shallow  religion  that  does  not  sometimes  pause 
and  rest  in  what  God  is  and  what  he  has  done  for  us 
sinners.  The  joy  of  the  Lord  is  our  strength,  and 
we  never  can  have  enduring  vigor  and  deep  peace 
unless  we  sometimes  feed  our  souls  upon  the  vision  of 
God's  everlasting  love  and  rest  in  the  hope  of  His 
eternal  glory. 

Approaching  the  subject  from  another  point  of 
view,  I  should  like  to  speak  a  few  words  upon  the  way 


TAKING  A  REST  171 

in  which  rest  is  to  be  obtained.  There  are  four  great 
powers  of  rest,  all  close  at  hand  and  within  the  reach 
of  every  one  of  us,  nature,  companionship,  the  Sun- 
day, and  God.  First,  npture.  God  has  given  the  visi- 
ble heavens  and  earth  a  mysterious  power  to  heal 
the  body,  calm  the  mind  and  soothe  the  spirit.  Na- 
ture is  a  trained  nurse  and  full  of  sympathies  as  a 
woman's  heart.  Her  blithe  sunlit  air  is  a  cordial  be- 
yond the  power  of  any  apothecary  to  mingle.  Her 
woods  are  high  places  full  of  presences  at  once  silent 
and  communicative.  Her  mornings  and  evenings 
are  apocalyptic  visions.  Her  hills,  rivers,  horizons, 
sunlight  and  shadow,  cloud  and  rainbow,  moon-rise 
and  star-light,  are  enchantments  that  lift  off  not  only 
the  weight  of  care  but  the  weariness  of  age  and  give 
back  our  youth.  And  it  need  not  be  nature  in  the 
Rocky  Moimtains  or  nature  around  the  Mediter- 
ranean Sea  to  do  this.  Many  persons  think  that  to 
have  rest  they  must  have  a  change  of  scene.  They 
think  that  rest  comes  from  flight  and  must  be  pur- 
sued. They  are  like  the  psalmist  who  in  one  of  his 
depressed  moods  cries  out,  ''0  that  I  had  wings  like 
a  dove !  for  then  would  I  fly  away,  and  be  at  rest. ' ' 
But  rest  is  not  obtained  in  that  way.  There  are  just 
as  many  tired,  restless,  unhappy  men  and  women 
hurrying  through  Europe  at  this  moment  as  are  stay- 
ing here  at  home.  You  need  not  journey  to  snowy 
mountain  ranges  or  stand  on  the  shore  of  the  deep 
blue  sea  to  enjoy  a  perfect  exhilaration.  You  can- 
not retreat  for  one  happy  hour  into  one  of  the  hills 


172  TAKING  A  REST 

that  compass  this  city  without  being  surrounded  from 
first  to  last  by  a  thousand  objects  of  beauty  and  joy 
fresh  from  the  hand  of  God.  You  cannot  look  up  into 
the  sky  without  a  vision  almost  human  in  its  expres- 
sions, almost  spiritual  in  its  tenderness,  almost  divine 
in  its  majesty.  Yesterday  brought  me  a  message 
from  a  friend  floating  in  a  gondola  near  the  Rialto 
beneath  the  moonlight  of  Venice,  with  the  air  all 
music  and  the  scene  faerie.  As  I  laid  down  the  mes- 
sage and  looked  through  my  window  into  the  blue 
depths  of  the  sky,  I  saw  floating  there  a  faerie  pageant 
of  cloudland,  purer  and  lovelier  than  the  famed  bride 
of  the  sea  ever  appeared. 

Ah,  friends,  let  not  vain  longings  for  that  which 
you  have  not  rob  you  of  the  full  enjoyment  of  what 
God  has  so  freely  given  you.  Seize  every  opportunity 
in  these  summer  days  of  communing  with  nature  here 
at  home.  Be  much  out  of  doors.  Go  as  often  as 
you  can  into  the  woods,  and  when  you  go  throw  open 
your  whole  natures  to  the  influences  around  you.  If 
possible  break  away  from  the  routine  of  your  ordinary 
occupation,  though  it  be  only  for  a  week  or  two. 
Leave  care  and  anxiety  behind  and  live  that  one  week 
in  the  solid  enjoyment  of  rest.  To  some  perhaps  a 
visit  to  a  great  city  would  be  a  real  rest  because  it 
would  take  them  out  of  their  own  thoughts  and 
troubles  more  effectually  than  a  quiet  place  in  the 
country.  The  form  and  place  in  which  the  rest  is 
taken  must  depend  upon  the  inclination  and  resources 
of  him  who  takes  it.    But  whether  it  be  in  the  city, 


TAKING  A  REST  173 

among  the  mountains  or  by  the  sea,  it  will  give  us 
new  and  happier  views  of  life  and  bring  us  nearer 
to  the  kingdom  of  God  to  go  apart  and  rest  awhile. 
Someone  has  said  that  nature  in  summer  is  just  as 
much  a  divine  institution  in  aid  of  our  spiritual  na- 
ture as  is  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  or  the 
ordinance  of  social  worship,  only  that  for  the  most 
part  we  fail  to  see  it  with  faith  and  devoutness. 

There  is  a  second  power  of  rest,  companionship. 
People  think  they  enjoy  places  and  things.  What 
they  really  enjoy  is  persons.  If  you  were  condemned 
to  spend  your  life  in  the  most  beautiful  spot  in  the 
Alps  or  the  Italian  Lakes  and  to  spend  it  there  alone, 
it  would  soon  become  drearier  to  you  than  a  desert. 
If  you  were  appointed  to  live  in  a  gorgeous  palace 
where  no  human  face  was  ever  seen,  where  no  foot- 
step but  your  own  was  ever  heard  in  its  richly  fur- 
nished rooms,  you  would  soon  long  to  share  a  hut  with 
a  friend.  The  human  soul  cannot  rest  in  things.  It 
demands  the  interchange  of  thoughts,  feelings,  sym- 
pathies. It  demands  companionship.  **My  presence 
shall  go  with  thee  and  I  will  give  thee  rest,*'  was 
spoken  by  God  to  Moses,  but  the  profound  truth  of 
it,  that  in  a  loving  Presence  is  rest,  we  have  all  felt. 
It  is  good  to  take  a  sympathizing  companion  into  our 
days  of  rest.  Indeed  this  is  what  real  inward  rest  is, 
the  ascendancy  of  a  strong  affection.  Love  and  trust 
are  the  great  rest-giving  powers,  even  as  inquiry  and 
doubt  are  the  fountains  of  unrest.  A  satisfied  heart 
is  always  a  rest. 


174  TAKING  A  REST 

There  is  a  companionship  of  books  as  well  as  of  liv- 
ing persons.  Books,  good  books,  are  friends  that 
speak  to  us,  walk  with  us,  comfort  us,  show  us  their 
hearts  and  allow  us  to  leave  them  at  any  moment 
without  being  offended.  It  may  easily  be  that  a  book 
shall  be  more  communicative  of  tranquility  and  rest 
than  a  living  person  because  the  element  of  restless- 
ness and  rancour  is  eliminated,  and  it  imparts  only 
light  and  sympathy.  Ruskin  classified  all  books  as 
books  for  the  hour  and  books  for  all  time.  It  is  well 
to  take  into  our  hours  of  rest  one  of  each  class,  a  book 
that  is  a  cordial  and  a  book  that  is  a  tonic,  a  sweet, 
wholesome  book  of  the  hour  and  a  great  immortal 
book,  and  alternate  them. 

Thirdly,  the  Sunday,  the  weekly  rest  day,  is  a  great 
power  and  precious  gift  of  rest.  God  has  caused  a 
deep  sleep  to  fall  upon  the  life  of  man  every  seventh 
day,  and  out  of  that  sleep  as  out  of  a  cradle  He 
causes  His  children  to  come  forth  rested,  quieted, 
pacified.  We  cannot  be  too  thankful  for  the  Sabbath 
Day,  ''God's  selected  gift  of  time,"  as  it  has  been 
called,  ''Mount  of  clearest  vision,  land  of  purest  air, 
spot  nearest  heaven's  gate."  What  a  pity  that  to 
many  people  the  Sunday  is  hardly  different  from  a 
mere  holiday!  What  a  pity  that  to  some  instead  of 
being  the  best  of  all  the  days  it  is  the  worst ;  a  day 
of  dissipation  and  exhaustion  instead  of  a  day  of  joy 
and  invigoration ! 

I  have  sometimes  heard  people  speak  as  if  the  strict 
Sabbath  rest  which  prevailed  in  New  England  fifty 


TAKING  A  EEST  175 

years  ago  must  have  made  the  day  a  bondage  and  a 
burden,  especially  to  children  and  young  people.  My 
experience  does  not  confirm  that  opinion.  Sunday 
was  never  a  dreaded  day  in  my  childhood.  It  was, 
however,  a  day  strangely  unlike  other  days.  It  was 
a  divinely  still  and  peaceful  day,  a  day,  as  it  were, 
out  of  another  world,  out  of  the  far  summer  sky,  a 
day  on  which  Heaven  bent  closer  over  the  earth  and 
the  ladder  of  vision  given  to  the  Hebrew  boy  lying 
on  the  desert  with  a  stone  for  his  pillow  was  given 
to  the  New  England  boy  in  his  pasture.  I  cannot  but 
feel  that  our  modern  life  would  be  sweeter  and 
happier  with  that  strange  still  day  in  the  midst  of  it. 
"Why  is  it  that  so  many  men  and  women  who  are 
sighing  for  rest  and  who  need  rest  are  not  permitted 
to  realize  it?  "Why  is  it  that  so  many  persons  are 
comi)elled  to  live  in  a  state  of  chronic  locomotion? 
Even  when  they  go  away  for  the  purpose  of  rest 
they  cannot  rest.  They  must  be  always  moving  on, 
always  traveling  to  the  next  place,  usually  starting 
Sunday  morning,  ever  urging  forward,  ever  forced 
along,  ever  anxious  and  excited,  never  tranquil,  never 
peaceful.  They  asked  in  Cairo  what  sin  the  people 
of  American  had  committed  that  they  had  always 
to  be  traveling  and  were  never  permitted  to  rest 
anywhere.  Is  the  answer  a  broken  commandment  and 
an  unhallowed  Sunday? 

Finally,  dear  friends,  there  is  one  great  original 
source  of  all  the  rest  in  the  world — God.  All  the 
powers  of  rest  we  have  been  trying  to  describe,  nature, 


176  TAKING  A  REST 

companionship,  books,  the  Sunday,  are  just  streams 
of  which  He  is  the  fountain.  In  Him  alone,  in  Him 
forever  is  perfect  rest.  What  that  rest  is  we  know 
not  yet.  The  stillest  summer  evening  that  ever  shed 
its  sweet  peace  around  cannot  tell  us  of  the  peace  of 
God  that  passeth  all  understanding.  The  most  blissful 
Sunday  that  ever  lifted  a  rapt  worshipper's  soul  on 
high  cannot  bring  us  within  sight  of  the  everlasting 
serenities  of  the  rest  that  remaineth  for  the  people 
of  God.  It  is  rest  for  all  trouble  and  danger  without 
and  for  all  sin  and  fear  within.  It  is  the  rest  of  every 
faculty  of  the  soul  completed,  every  longing  fulfilled, 
every  desire  satisfied.  It  is  the  rest,  the  unspeakable 
rapture  of  union  with  God.  0  my  brother,  my  sister, 
this  is  the  rest  which  you  need,  which  I  need,  which 
every  human  soul  needs,  the  rest  of  the  love  of  God. 

And  He  is  calling  us  to  it.  He  is  stretching  out 
His  hands  to  us  this  morning.  He  is  looking  upon 
our  sin  and  restlessness  with  tender  compassion.  He 
is  opening  His  heart  to  us  as  earnestly,  as  lovingly  as 
ever  before.  He  is  longing  to  have  us  all  forgiven,  all 
redeemed,  all  saved  from  sin  and  weariness  and  death 
and  welcomed  home  to  everlasting  rest  in  Heaven.  I 
will  close  with  His  words,  grandest,  kingliest,  sweet- 
est, best  ever  spoken  in  this  lost  world,  '*Come  unto 
me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will 
give  you  rest.'' 


THE   SCOPE  AND   OUTLOOK   OF   LIFE. 

* '  We  look  not  at  the  things  which  are  seen,  but  at  the  things 
which  are  not  seen:  for  the  things  which  are  seen  are  temporal; 
but  the  things  which  are  not  seen  are  eternal. '^  2nd  Cor- 
inthians 4:  18. 

Is  this  a  possible  thing  to  do?  And  if  possible  is  it 
profitable  or  praiseworthy  for  a  man  to  shnt  his  eye 
to  things  revealed  about  him  in  order  to  fix  his  at- 
tention upon  hidden  things  above  him?  Is  it  so  that 
men  are  awake  and  alert  to  discern  the  signs  of  the 
times  and  do  their  work  in  the  world?  Has  God 
made  this  world  and  made  it  so  conspicuous  just  to 
be  looked  away  from?  Has  God  made  the  human 
eye  and  made  it  so  keen  and  penetrating  just  to  be 
disused?  There  is  a  great  deal  of  pulpit  talk  about 
looking  away  from  the  things  of  time  to  the  things 
of  eternity  that  is  about  the  dullest,  dismallest  speech 
ever  inflicted  upon  the  human  ear,  and  St.  Paul  is  not 
responsible  for  it. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  looking.  There  is  a  look- 
ing which  is  temporary  observing  and  there  is  a  look- 
ing which  is  a  fixed  gaze  upon  a  goal.  There  is  a 
looking  that  observes  facts,  notes  characteristics, 
recognizes  relations,  takes  account  of  means  and  ends 
and  sees  how  things  can  be  accomplished.    And  there 


Preached  in  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  Binghamton,  1905. 

177 


178        SCOPE  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  LIFE 

is  a  looking  which  the  Psalmist  expresses  when  he 
says,  *'I  have  set  the  Lord  always  before  me/' 

Every  great  sonl — and  every  soul  is  great — ^has  a 
double  vision,  a  near-by  look  which  takes  in  passing 
facts,  experiences,  opportunities,  and  a  far-away  look 
which  terminates  upon  some  invisible  aim,  some  ideal 
eternal  issue.  Darwin  was  always  observing  facts 
about  him  and  at  the  same  time  always  setting  before 
him  that  great  invisible  law  of  evolution.  Napoleon 
had  his  eyes  wide  open  to  events  and  movements 
around  him,  but  the  pillar  of  cloud  that  went  before 
him  was  his  vision  of  universal  empire. 

Now  when  St.  Paul  says  ''we  look  not  at  the  things 
that  are  seen,'*  he  does  not  mean  that  he  pays  no  at- 
tention to  things  around  him.  No  man  ever  had  a 
quicker  eye  to  take  in  the  existing  situation  than  he 
who  spoke  to  the  mob  on  the  stairs  of  the  castle  of 
Antonia,  defended  himself  before  Pestus  and  Agrippa, 
and  assumed  the  management  of  affairs  on  the  wreck 
of  the  foundered  Alexandrian  ship.  It  is  the  other 
kind  of  looking  which  the  Apostle  has  in  mind,  the 
fixed  gaze,  the  far-away  vision,  the  shining  goal.  He 
means  that  he  is  journeying  through  this  world  under 
a  light  and  glory  that  shines  from  above.  God  and 
eternity  are  always  before  him.  His  inspiration,  his 
governing  motive,  his  guiding  star,  are  above,  not  be- 
neath. He  toils  and  endures  as  seeing  Him  who  is 
invisible. 

Our  subject  is  the  true  scope  and  outlook  of  life. 
' '  We  look  not  at  the  things  which  are  seen  but  at  the 


SCOPE  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  LIFE        179 

things  which  are  not  seen;  for  the  things  which  are 
seen  are  temporal ;  but  the  things  which  are  not  seen 
are  eternal."  Time  and  eternity,  the  seen  and  the 
unseen,  the  things  of  this  passing  world  and  the  ma- 
jesties of  the  eternal  world  to  come,  these  are  the 
things  which  the  Apostle  in  stately  solemn  phrase 
sets  over  against  each  other  to  point  out  the  soul's 
free  outlook.  In  both  of  these  we  are  all  profoundly 
interested.  "We  are  bound  to  be  interested  in  this  visi- 
ble world  in  which  we  are  living  and  acting,  making 
fortunes  or  losing  them.  And  there  are  moments 
when  the  eternal  country  of  which  we  are  soon  to 
make  trial  looms  up  with  tremendous  reality  and  over- 
whelming interest.  In  a  recent  illness  my  first  feel- 
ing and  experience  was  this  great  contrast  of  St. 
Paul's.  The  eternal  realities  yonder  rose  above  the 
temporal  here  like  majesties  over  phantoms  and 
pushed  them  out  of  sight.  I  sat  for  days  where  the 
highest  building  of  this  city  was  in  process  of  erec- 
tion before  my  eyes,  and  it  seemed  as  insignificant 
to  me  as  a  child's  play  house.  I  would  not  have 
stretched  out  my  hand  if  I  could  for  the  offered  deed 
of  it.  The  whole  material  city  faded  into  worthless- 
ness.  I  was  like  a  man  among  shadows  with  a  world 
of  living  grandeur  ready  to  open  before  him. 

Brethren,  we  are  heirs  of  two  worlds  We  are  stand- 
ing for  the  time  in  one  creation,  while  another  and 
grander  is  steadily  bearing  down  upon  us  like  gigantic 
headlands  in  a  misty  dawn.  Well  now,  what  are  we  look- 
ing at  ?    What  are  we  really  and  finally  fixing  our  eyes 


180        SCOPE  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  LIFE 

upon  ?  What  are  we  setting  before  us  as  the  true  scope 
and  ultimate  object  of  our  vision,  the  transient  gains 
and  pleasures  of  this  ephemeral  scene  or  the  august 
and  holy  presence  of  God  and  our  eternal  home?  It 
makes  all  the  difference  what  we  are  looking  at.  The 
eye  is  the  watch  tower  of  the  soul.  I  want  you  this 
morning  to  see  how  true  this  is.  I  want  you  to  see  how 
much  the  direction  of  a  man's  gaze  has  to  do  with 
determining  his  present  life  and  future  destiny. 

Consider  in  the  first  place  how  it  affects  our  concep- 
tion of  this  world  and  our  estimate  of  things  about  us 
to  see  them  all  in  their  relation  to  God  and  eternity. 
You  know  how  it  changes  the  appearance  of  some 
stores  on  Court  Street  to  see  a  twelve  story  building 
behind  them.  You  know  perhaps  how  a  village  in 
Switzerland  looks  against  the  background  of  a  great 
white  Alp.  The  streets  lose  their  breadth.  The 
buildings  have  no  height.  The  spaces  are  contracted, 
the  elevations  are  flattened,  and  the  whole  village 
has  the  appearance  of  a  toy-like  erection.  So  with 
this  world  in  the  eyes  of  one  who  sees  the  heavens 
opened.  "Wealth,  rank,  honor,  the  prizes  of  ambition 
and  rewards  of  public  applause  seem  very  important 
to  one  who  sees  them  by  themselves.  But  seen  against 
the  great  white  background  of  the  almighty  and  eter- 
nal, how  the  pride  and  bravery  of  this  transitory 
world  dwindle !  One  view  of  the  glory  of  Jesus  Christ 
above  his  head  on  the  wayside  to  Damascus  reversed 
instantly  and  completely  Paul 's  estimate  of  this  whole 
world.     I  must  see  God  in  the  background  to  get  a 


SCOPE  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  LIFE         181 

correct  view  of  things  in  the  foreground.  I  am  easily 
deceived.  Near  pleasures,  immediate  enjoyments, 
present  gains  get  an  exaggerated  importance  from  my 
nearsightedness.  What  I  need  is  an  eternal  back- 
ground whose  revealing  light  shall  correct  my  view, 
rectify  my  judgments  and  enable  me  to  see  things  in 
their  just  relations. 

But  again,  the  vision  of  God  in  the  background  im- 
plies not  only  corrected  views  and  rectified  judgments. 
It  implies  also  deepened  insights  into  the  real  nature 
of  things.  John  Ruskin  has  said  that  the  greatest 
thing  a  human  soul  ever  does  in  this  world  is  to  see 
something  or  someone  as  it  really  is  and  tell  what  he 
sees  in  a  plain  way.  To  see  clearly  and  distinctly, 
deeply,  is  indeed  science,  poetry  and  religion  all 
in  one.  One  man  looks  at  a  machine  shop  and  sees  in 
it  a  place  where  men  with  grimy  hands  and  black- 
ened faces  are  coming  out  and  going  in,  turning  wood, 
molding  iron,  manufacturing  machinery.  Another 
man  looks  at  the  same  shop  and  sees  a  place  where 
God  is  turning  virtues,  molding  characters  and  train- 
ing immortal  souls  for  a  wonderful  future  which  lies 
before  them.  To  one  person's  eye  a  school  room 
shows  teachers  drilling  some  rather  dull-looking  chil- 
dren in  language  and  numbers.  To  the  eye  of  an- 
other person  it  is  a  vision  of  angels  opening  the 
shining  gates  and  ushering  new  souls  into  the  eternal 
palace  of  knowledge.  Home  shall  seem  to  one  a  kind 
of  combination  eating-house  and  dormitory.  To  an- 
other home  shall  seem  a  nursery  of  love  and  sacrifice, 


182        SCOPE  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  LIFE 

a  school  of  social  fellowship  and  duty,  an  image  and 
likeness  of  heaven.  Wherein  lies  the  difference  of 
these  views?  In  the  background.  One  person  looks 
at  things  and  sees  in  them  little  of  interest  or  value 
because  his  look  has  no  divine  perspective.  Another 
person  looks  at  things  and  sees  in  them  a  hidden  glory 
because  he  sees  the  light  and  purpose  and  beauty  of 
God  shining  through  them. 

I  remember  one  summer  evening  in  Lucerne  watch- 
ing the  operation  of  a  powerful  searchlight  thrown 
out  from  the  opposite  summit  of  the  Stanserhorn.  I 
saw  it  flashing  over  the  dark  waves  of  the  beautiful 
lake,  touching  with  luminous  fingers  the  chestnut 
trees  on  the  quays,  illuminating  the  quaint  old  bridges 
across  the  Reuss,  darting  up  the  wooded  heights  of  the 
Giitsch  and  playing  over  the  lovely  slopes  of  the  Drei 
Linden.  It  was  like  the  lifting  of  a  heavenly  curtain, 
like  the  breaking  of  a  celestial  effulgence.  The  whole 
panorama  of  lake  and  mountains,  brooks  and  bays, 
city  and  country,  stood  out  clear,  distinct,  radiant,  in 
the  revealing  brightness.  Like  that  is  the  effect  of  the 
vision  of  God  and  the  eternals  upon  the  world.  It 
discovers  wonderful  secrets,  brings  to  light  hidden 
treasures,  interprets  dark  providences,  shows  eternal 
issues,  and  makes  this  whole  world  of  men  and  things 
a  kind  of  divine  transparency. 

But  again,  the  vision  of  God  as  the  abiding  back- 
ground of  his  mind  ennobles  a  man's  work  and  the 
common  duties  of  his  daily  life.  It  does  this  by  ex- 
pelling from  his  mind  all  falsehood,  dishonesty,  and 


SCOPE  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  LIFE        183 

every  mean  device.  Are  you  a  working  man?  Not 
until  you  look  away  from  God  can  you  scamp  your 
work.  Are  you  a  tradesman?  Not  until  you  look 
away  from  God  can  you  use  false  weights  and  meas- 
ures. Are  you  a  public  official?  Not  until  you  look 
away  from  God  can  you  carry  behind  you  an  open 
hand  for  graft.  It  is  said  that  one  of  Robertson's 
congregation  in  Brighton  used  to  keep  the  portrait 
of  the  great  preacher  hanging  in  a  room  behind  his 
shop,  and  when  he  was  tempted  to  any  kind  of  trick- 
ery, he  would  go  and  stand  before  that  face  until  the 
devil  left  him.  His  background  was  a  holy  human 
face,  but  it  was  God  and  eternity  he  saw  in  it  all 
the  same.  You  have  heard  the  oft-repeated  tale  of  the 
Italian  painter  who  when  asked  why  he  took  such 
excessive  pains  with  his  work  replied,  ' '  I  am  painting 
for  eternity.  It  is  worth  while  to  take  pains."  Per- 
haps he  was  mistaken.  Perhaps  he  was  only  painting 
for  time  after  all.  But  in  another  sense  he  had  a 
right  to  say,  and  every  one  of  us  who  is  doing  his 
daily  work,  however  humble,  in  the  sight  of  God,  has 
a  right  to  say,  ' '  I  am  working  for  eternity.  I  can  do 
nothing  meanly  or  slovenly. ' ' 

The  vision  of  God  in  the  background  implies  honest, 
painstaking  work.  It  implies  also  enthusiastic  work. 
Nothing  great  is  ever  done  without  enthusiasm.  But 
where  is  one  to  get  enthusiasm?  A  man  involved  in 
the  petty  details  and  drudgery  of  his  vocation,  a  wo- 
man in  the  treadmill  of  small  activities  and  monoto- 
nous tasks,  how  is  it  possible  for  such  ever  to  rise  to 


184        SCOPE  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  LIFE 

the  height  of  passionate  enthusiasm?  I  answer,  by 
setting  God  and  eternity  before  them.  Look  at  those 
great  cathedral-builders  of  the  mediaeval  time  cutting 
blocks  of  stone,  shaping  columns,  carving  figures 
and  doing  it  all  with  the  hands  of  wide-eyed  enthusi- 
asts. How  grand  they  were  in  their  toil!  How 
happy!  Their  work  was  almost  worship.  They 
wrought  their  daily  tasks  in  the  spirit  of  a  lofty  con- 
secration. Their  very  hammers  rang  Te  Deums. 
Their  chisels  chipped  glorias.  What  is  the  explana- 
tion? They  looked  not  merely  to  the  materials  on 
which  they  were  working  or  to  the  earthly  paymasters 
who  employed  them.  Their  eyes  stretched  up  to  the 
Infinite.  They  linked  their  work  to  God  and  His 
new  creation.  Brethren,  the  great  need  of  all  kinds 
of  work  to-day  is  the  upward  look.  Human  indus- 
tries are  debased  by  being  regarded  on  one  side  as 
the  instruments  of  capitalistic  greed  and  on  the  other 
as  the  mere  equivalents  of  bread  and  butter.  If  men 
could  see  themselves  and  their  work  in  the  larger 
light  of  God,  if  they  could  see  themselves  as  God's 
workmen  and  see  their  works  as  God's  service,  what 
a  dignity  would  descend  upon  human  labor!  What 
enthusiasms  would  fill  the  world's  workers!  *' Hitch 
your  wagon  to  a  star,"  says  Emerson.  *^ Hitch  your 
work  to  Him  who  is  above  the  stars,"  says  St.  Paul. 
But  again,  the  vision  of  God  in  the  background 
works  its  effect  upon  our  personal  life  and  character. 
We  grow  like  what  we  habitually  look  at.  A  life  lived 
in  the  steady  contemplation  of  God  experiences  the 


SCOPE  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  LIFE        185 

love  of  God  and  power  of  God  working  in  its  inmost 
depths  with  gracious  transfiguring  effect.  It  is  a 
wonderful  thing  to  read  such  a  life  in  a  written 
biography,  still  more  wonderful  to  come  into  con- 
tact with  it  through  personal  acquaintance.  Some 
years  ago  I  met  George  Miiller  of  Bristol,  England. 
He  had  the  upward  look.  I  could  not  but  feel  it. 
He  told  us  in  the  fellowship  of  the  home,  he  told  us 
in  the  church,  the  thrilling  story  of  his  orphanages, 
the  way  they  were  planted  and  the  ways  they  had 
been  watered,  and  O  how  he  told  it !  No  egotism,  no 
'  *  I "  writ  large  or  small,  and  no  anxiety,  no  worry,  no 
frantic  appeal,  though  thousands  of  homeless  chil- 
dren were  hanging  upon  his  hands.  He  told  the  story 
with  the  simplicity  of  a  child,  with  the  quietness  and 
confidence  of  an  assured  soul.  **Thou  wilt  keep  him 
in  perfect  peace  whose  mind  is  stayed  on  thee. "  "In 
quietness  and  confidence  shall  be  your  strength." 

So  it  was  with  George  Miiller.  So  it  may  be  with 
us.  He  who  fixes  his  eye  on  God  finds  his  feet  fixed 
on  a  rock.  He  is  delivered  from  all  wavering  and 
panic.  The  shake  and  tremble  goes  out  of  a  man 
who  beholds  the  invisible.  He  has  about  his  inmost 
heart  a  feeling  of  security,  and  about  his  entire  life 
an  atmosphere  of  firmness,  calmness,  secret  strength 
and  dauntless  courage. 

I  see  that  brave  young  spirit,  the  first  to  die  for 
Jesus  Christ,  standing  in  the  great  hall  of  the  temple 
of  Herod  in  the  bloom  of  youth,  facing  a  bench  of 
hostile  judges,  surrounded  by  a  vast  concourse  of 


186        SCOPE  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  LIFE 

excited  spectators — standing  there  while  the  rage 
deepens,  while  the  gnashing  of  teeth  infuriates,  while 
the  murderous  stones  batter  and  shatter  his  body, 
calm,  unmoved,  beautiful,  his  face  as  it  had  been  the 
face  of  an  angel,  his  words  echoes  of  his  Master's, 
''Lord,  lay  not  this  sin  to  their  charge.''  I  witness 
the  awful  tragedy.  I  ask  the  secret  of  Stephen's  un- 
earthly calm  and  courage  and  sublime  forgiving 
spirit.  And  I  find  it  in  the  testimony  borne  to  him, 
''He  looked  up  steadfastly  into  heaven  and  saw  the 
glory  of  God  and  Jesus  Christ  standing  on  the  right 
hand  of  God." 

Once  more,  the  vision  of  God  in  the  background 
works  its  effect  upon  our  eternal  future.  It  realizes 
and  actualizes  the  whole  circle  of  truths,  powers  and 
agencies  which  constitute  the  eternal  world.  The 
soul,  its  value  and  immeasurable  possibilities,  sin,  its 
reality  and  terrible  ruin,  Christ,  His  unconquerable 
personality,  marvelous  condescension  and  victorious 
deliverance  of  our  race,  the  Bible,  its  wondrous  reve- 
lations of  truth  and  love  and  immortality,  eternity, 
its  awfuLness  and  its  inconceivable  glory  and  blessed- 
ness, these  all  grow  upon  a  man  and  come  to  be  more 
and  more  with  him  as  the  subjects  of  his  thought  and 
the  objects  of  his  affections  while  he  lifts  up  his 
eyes  on  high.  To  his  intensified  eye  of  faith  and  love 
the  spiritual  world  becomes  as  real  as  the  natural. 
He  grasps  eternity  in  time.  He  begins  to  live  the 
eternal  life  already. 

There  is  a  picture  by  Ary  Scheffer  at  the  bottom 


SCOPE  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  LIFE         187 

of  which  are  inscribed  the  words,  ' '  St.  Augustine  and 
his  mother  Monica."    Two  figures  are  leaning  out  on 
a  window-sill  of  a  house  in  the  port  of  Ostia.     Two 
rapt  faces  are   gazing  toward  heaven.     ''We  were 
waiting,"  so  writes  the  son,  ''for  the  moment  when 
we  were  to  set  sail.    "We  were  alone  conversing  with 
indescribable   sweetness.      Forgetting  the   past   and 
stretching  toward  the  future,  we  were  asking  ourselves 
what  shall  be  that  eternal  life  which  eye  hath  not 
seen  nor  ear  heard.     And  come  aloft  on  the  wings 
of  love  towards  Him  who  is,  we  climbed  as  it  were 
up  through  those  celestial  regions  whence  the  stars, 
the  moon  and  the  sun  send  us  their  light.     And  as 
we  thus  rose  in  our  ardent  aspirations  toward  that 
life  we  seemed  to  touch  it  for  one  moment  with  a 
bound  of  the  heart,  and  sighed  as  we  left  there  cap- 
tive the  first  fruits  of  the  spirit  and  came  back  again 
to  the  sound  of  the  voice  which  begins  and  ends. 
Then  my  mother  said  to  me,  'My  son,  so  far  as  I  am 
concerned  there  is  nothing  more  to  bind  me  to  this 
life.    What  should  I  do  in  it?    There  was  one  thing 
for  which  I  desired  to  continue  in  life,  and  that  was 
that  I  might  see  you  a  Christian  before  I  died.    My 
God  has  given  me  that  and  more  than  that.     Why 
should  I  tarry  here  any  longer?'  "    And  then  at  the 
close  of  a  conversation  that  soared  above  the  confines 
of  time  and  space  and  was  a  foretaste  of  the  eternal 
rest,  Monica  immediately  fell  asleep  in  the  arms  of 
her  son  and  upon  the  bosom  of  her  Saviour. 

Ah  friends,  we  are  all  like  those  two  in  the  window 


188        SCOPE  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  LIFE 

soon  to  set  sail.  A  few  more  days  of  this  sweet 
earthly  scene,  a  few  more  mornings  of  light  and  glad- 
ness, a  few  more  evenings  of  fellowship  and  rest,  a 
few  more  opportunities  to  do  our  duty,  a  few  more 
hours  to  repent  and  pray,  a  few  more  joys  and  sor- 
rows, smiles  and  tears,  and  you  and  I  will  have  passed 
into  the  undiscovered  country  from  whose  bourne  no 
traveler  returns. 

Happy,  immeasurably  happy  and  thankful  shall 
we  be  if  in  a  world  of  shadows  we  have  fixed  our 
eyes  upon  the  visions  of  eternity,  if  in  a  world  of 
sin  we  have  personally  grasped  the  redeeming  work 
of  Jesus  Christ,  if  in  a  world  of  insoluble  mysteries 
and  delusions  on  every  hand  we  have  made  the  Bible 
our  guide  and  lived  a  life  of  prayer,  if  in  a  world 
sinking  down  into  death  and  the  grave  we  have  kept 
in  view  our  eternal  destiny  and  looked  not  at  the 
things  which  are  seen,  but  at  the  things  which  are 
not  seen,  *  *  for  the  things  which  are  seen  are  temporal, 
but  the  things  which  are  not  seen  are  eternal. ' ' 


Addresses  on 
Special  Occasioas 


ADDRESSES 

Dr.  Nichols'  preaching  was  always  specially  planned 
for  the  winning  of  his  people  to  open  confession  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Only  one  or  two  communion 
seasons  in  all  the  years  passed  without  additions  to 
the  church  on  confession  of  faith^  and  he  then  felt 
reproachful  and  self -condemned  that  he  had  not  won 
more  to  allegiance  to  his  Master.  The  list  of  those 
not  owning  Christ  (always  carried  in  his  pocket) 
was  carefully  studied.  As  the  communion  time  drew 
near,  each  one,  wherever  it  was  possible,  was  ap- 
proached with  wisest  tact ;  and  none  that  heard  them 
will  ever  forget  the  tender  personal  appeals  made 
from  the  pulpit. 

Because  of  this  great  desire  to  make  disciples.  Dr. 
Nichols  magnified  the  sacrament  of  the  Holy  Com- 
munion, and  the  Service  Preparatory  to  it,  which  was 
always  with  him  a  special  additional  service.  His 
intensity  of  feeling  communicated  itself  to  the  people, 
and  an  unwonted  solemnity  prevailed  in  these  serv- 
ices. His  Preparatory  Lectures  were  not  merely 
good  talks,  but  specially  written  for  distinctive  phases 
of  preparation  for  the  sacrament.  Standing  at  the 
Lord's  Table  in  Communion,  he  always  welcomed  his 
people  to  the  feast  with  tenderest  words  of  faith  and 
devotion,  and  his  presence  seemed  a  benediction  to 
them  even  at  that  holy  time. 

On  many  Sundays  in  different  years  he  preached 
191 


192  ADDRESSES 

short  sermons  to  children,  which  were  as  eagerly  list- 
ened to  by  the  children  grown  old  as  by  the  children 
themselves. 

For  about  twenty  years  he  was  the  Chaplain  of  the 
Sixth  Battery  of  the  National  Guard,  and  when  in 
health  enjoyed  preaching  to  the  men  of  this  organiza- 
tion at  least  once  a  year. 

He  was  often  sought  for  lectures  and  special  serv- 
ices away  from  his  home,  but  always  felt  that  his 
whole  time  was  not  too  much  to  give  to  his  own 
church. 

For  many  years,  as  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Synodical  Home  Missions  of  the  Presbytery  of  Bing- 
hamton,  he  gave  much  time  and  thought  to  this  cause, 
which  he  esteemed  vital  to  the  best  interests  of  the 
Church  and  the  country.  The  smaller  country  and 
village  churches  were  carried  on  his  heart  by  the  man 
who  in  his  beautiful  church  and  great  congregation 
did  not  forget  his  country  boyhood  and  his  village 
pastorate.  He  became  in  a  real  sense  the  bishop  of 
these  churches,  advising,  encouraging,  composing 
difficulties,  providing  for  various  needs,  visiting  them 
to  preach  occasional  sermons.  He  was  much  resorted 
to  by  the  ministers  and  churches  of  a  wide  region 
around  Binghamton  for  counsel  and  help,  and  never 
in  vain. 

A  few  addresses  given  on  occasions  connected  with 
some  of  the  matters  above  referred  to,  and  on  others, 
are  here  reproduced,  whole  or  in  part,  to  illustrate 
different  phases  of  Dr.  Nichols'  ministry. 


SPEECH    AT    THE    DINNER    OF    THE    BING- 
HAMTON  BOARD  OP  TRADE. 

Mr.   Toastmaster   and   Gentlemen  of   the   Board  of 
Trade: 

The  Binghamton  Board  of  Trade  has  now  fully 
proved  the  great  functions  of  its  organization  and 
settled  the  question  of  its  existence.  It  has  eaten  its 
first  Dinner.  Substantial  existence  cannot  be  predi- 
cated of  any  body  until  its  capacity  for  taking  food 
has  been  demonstrated.  Just  why  so  healthy  and  prom- 
ising an  organization  as  this  has  been  kept  in  a  state 
of  abstinence  for  so  long  a  time,  I  do  not  understand. 
But  the  critical  moment  is  now  passed.  And  if  the 
gentlemen  in  charge  have  felt  any  uneasiness  in  re- 
gard to  this  trial,  their  anxieties  must  now  all  be  re- 
moved, and  their  minds  filled  with  pride  and  satis- 
faction. I  congratulate  the  Binghamton  Board  of 
Trade  upon  its  first  Dinner.  Many  future  dinners 
may  it  eat,  and  may  it  see  the  necessity  of  having  a 
clergyman  present  on  every  occasion. 

Everyone,  it  seems  to  me,  must  see  the  fitness  of 
inviting  a  minister  to  teach  manufacturers  and  mar- 
chants  and  bankers  how  to  do  their  business.  Indeed, 
I  believe  it  is  the  object  for  which  banquets  are  usu- 
ally held,  that  persons  who  know  nothing  about  a 
subject  may  enlighten  those  who  have  spent  their  life- 


'December  15.  1891. 

193 


194        AT  BOARD  OF  TRADE  DINNER 

time  in  practising  it.  I  have  noticed  that  the  prin- 
cipal speakers  chosen  to  honor  the  Pilgrims  on  Fore- 
father's Day  are  usually  men  who  were  born  in  one 
of  the  Provinces  of  Canada  or  in  Texas  or  in  one 
of  the  South  American  States — men  who  have  never 
set  foot  within  the  boundaries  of  New  England  in 
their  lives  and  who  know  as  much  about  the  Puritans 
as  about  the  natives  of  the  Congo  State.  I  observed 
that  at  the  recent  Dinner  of  the  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce in  New  York,  the  speakers  selected  to  bind 
those  merchant  princes  and  teach  those  metropolitan 
bankers  wisdom  were  Dr.  Briggs  and  Bishop  Potter 
— two  men  whose  knowledge  of  business  chiefly  con- 
sists in  preaching  eleemosynary  sermons,  passing 
around  the  hat  and  drawing  their  salaries.  But  this 
only  shows  what  wonderful  men  we  clergymen  are. 
If  in  the  things  of  which  we  know  the  least,  we  are 
able  to  instruct  the  wisest,  what  must  our  knowledge 
be  in  our  own  special  field  of  theology!  Goldsmith 
understood  us  when  he  wrote 

^'In  arguing,  too,  the  parson  owned  his  skill; 
For  e'en  though  vanquished  he  could  argue  still; 
While  words  of  learned  length  and  thundering  sound 
Amazed  the  gazing  rustics  ranged  around; 
And  still  they  gazed,  and  still  the  wonder  grew, 
That  one  small  head  could  carry  all  he  knew. '  ^ 

The  ninth  century  put  the  whole  realm  of  trade 
under  ban.  The  very  idea  of  trade  was  declared  to 
be  incompatible  with  the  character  of  a  gentleman 
and  the  profession  of  a  Christian.    A  tradesman  was 


AT  BOARD  OF  TRADE  DINNER        195 

a  vulgar  fellow,  and  buying  and  selling  was  a  dis- 
reputable occupation.  The  Council  of  Mayence,  A. 
D.  813,  issued  capitularies  prohibiting  clergymen  from 
all  acts  of  trade  and  restraining  religious  persons  from 
going  near  a  market  except  to  procure  the  actual 
necessaries  of  life.  War  and  warlike  sports  were 
the  only  pursuits  thought  worthy  of  a  gentleman, 
and  the  only  engagements  outside  of  his  sacred  duties 
suitable  to  a  clergyman  were  hunting  and  carousing. 

But  the  ninth  century  was  the  culmination  of  that 
defection  from  the  truth  of  Christianity  and  lapse 
into  barbarism  which  we  call  the  Dark  Ages.  It  was 
not  so  at  the  beginning.  So  far  from  any  antagon- 
ism between  Christianity  and  trade,  a  certain  affinity 
existed  between  them  at  first.  The  chosen  places 
where  Christianity  first  sought  entrance  and  took 
root  were  busy  commercial  cities  like  Antioch,  Cor- 
inth and  Ephesus.  The  age  of  the  first  spread  of 
Christianity  was  a  commercial  age.  The  Holy  Apos- 
tles were  nearly  aU  tradesmen  and  our  blessed  Lord 
Himself  was  trained  to  be  a  handicraftsman. 

Gentlemen,  I  wish  to  propose  an  inquiry.  Is  the 
nienteenth  century  again  approaching  the  attitude 
of  the  ninth  century  in  its  condemnation  of  trade, 
with  this  difference,  that  the  condemnation  instead 
of  proceeding  from  the  Church,  now  proceeds  from 
business  men  themselves,  and  instead  of  terminating 
upon  the  inherent  nature  of  trade,  now  terminates 
upon  the  dishonest  manner  in  which  trade  is  carried 
on?     To  my  mind  a  very  grave  accusation  is  laid 


196        AT  BOARD  OF  TRADE  DINNER 

against  trade,  when  it  is  deliberately  said  that  no 
man  can  do  business  at  the  present  time  and  do  it 
successfully  and  at  the  same  time  be  an  honest  man. 
It  is  a  fact  to  startle  a  thoughtful  man  when  an  in- 
telligent grocer  declares  that  cojffee  and  spices  are  now 
so  uniformly  adulterated  and  that  spurious  mixtures 
are  so  invariably  sold  under  the  names  of  genuine 
articles  that  no  man  can  tell  the  truth  about  his 
goods  and  sell  them  for  what  they  really  are  except 
at  a  positive  loss.  It  is  a  thing  to  make  us  pause  when 
a  manufacturer  can  soberly  aver  that  there  is  no 
money,  for  him  or  any  man,  in  making  honest  goods 
and  that  the  expression  ''an  honest  livelihood,"  in 
trade  at  least,  became  long  ago  a  contradiction  in 
terms. 

Gentlemen,  I  feel  a  sense  of  impropriety  in  utter- 
ing these  sentences  in  your  presence  as  your  guest.  I 
seem  to  be  somewhat  in  the  condition  of  the  boy  who 
confessed  on  his  brother.  The  two  brothers  had  been 
straitly  warned  by  their  father  against  touching  the 
fruit  on  a  certain  pear  tree.  But  the  temptation  was 
too  strong,  and  one  night  the  boys  robbed  the  tree. 
Shortly  after  one  of  them  was  treated  to  a  terrific 
trouncing.  He  could  not  imagine  how  his  father 
found  it  out,  and  was  wondering  to  his  brother  about 
it,  when  the  other,  a  saintly  little  fellow,  said  quite 
promptly,  **My  conscience  troubled  me  so  that  I  went 
and  confessed  it  all  to  father.''  ''You  did,^'  said  the 
other,  "Why  then  didn't  you  get  a  licking  too?" 
"0,"  said  he,  "I  confessed  it  on  you." 


AT  BOARD  OF  TRADE  DINNER        197 

But  the  business  man  confesses  on  himself,  not  on 
his  brother.  The  charges  I  have  repeated  were  all 
taken  from  the  lips  of  tradesmen.  The  authors  of  the 
severest  strictures  upon  business  methods  and  busi- 
ness morals  are  business  men  themselves.  This  shows 
that  the  foundations  are  not  worm-eaten  as  some 
would  have  us  believe.  This  shows  that  there  is  a 
great  deep  imderlying  conscience  in  trade.  It  shows 
that  men  love  truth  and  righteousness  and  hate  lies 
and  are  determined  in  some  way  to  squeeze  lies  out 
of  their  business.  I  do  not  know  what  is  your  plan 
for  accomplishing  this,  but  I  rather  suspect  it  is  your 
idea  that  this  is  something  that  will  not  be  effected 
by  prayer  alone,  that  it  will  require  one  to  add  to  his 
faith  virtue,  and  to  his  prayer  works.  I  suspect  that 
your  doctrine  here  is  something  like  that  of  the  old 
colored  man  in  Princeton  who  was  asked  by  a  divinity 
student  if  he  had  a  turkey  on  Thanksgiving  Day. 
''0,  yes,  massa,"  he  said,  "I  had  turkey.''  Upon 
being  asked  where  he  got  it,  he  said,  ''I  prayed  for 
dat  turkey,  but  no  turkey  done  come.  So  I  prayed 
de  Lord  to  send  me  after  dat  turkey,  and  bress  de 
Lord,  I  had  free  turkey  afore  mornin'." 

Gentlemen,  there  was  a  time  in  this  country  when 
men  did  not  look  or  expect  to  be  rich  in  a  few 
years.  There  was  a  time  when  men  and  women  were 
not  so  very  anxious  to  be  rich,  when  they  counted  it 
enough  to  have  a  wholesome  living,  a  well-furnished 
mind,  a  strong,  healthy  family  of  children  and  a  few 
thousands  of  dollars  laid  aside  for  old  age.     There 


198        AT  BOARD  OF  TRADE  DINNER 

was  a  time  when  there  were  no  Napoleons  in  finance 
and  men  knew  nothing  about  speculating  with  other 
people's  money  and  escaping  the  payment  of  their 
debts.  There  was  a  time  when  men  expected  to  thrive 
in  no  other  way  than  by  honest  industry,  frugal 
habits,  careful  savings,  prudent  investments  and 
gradual  accumulation.  We  cannot  now  return  to  the 
narrow  conditions,  slow  movements  and  small  opera- 
tions of  the  past.  But  we  can  return,  and  we  shall 
never  be  happy  men  and  prosperous  men  until  we  do 
return,  to  the  practice  of  the  old-fashioned  virtues  of 
industry,  temperance,  frugality,  fidelity  and  reason- 
able self-denial. 


GREETING  TO  THE  CONGREGATION. 

I  fancy  you  can  hardly  appreciate  the  joy  I  feel 
in  worshipping  together  with  you  all  here  this  morn- 
ing. I  am  sure  you  would  think  me  emotional  and 
extravagant  were  I  to  give  full  expression  to  the  feel- 
ings of  my  heart  at  this  moment.  I  think  of  the 
experience  of  my  boyhood  when  returning  from  a 
long  absence  at  school  I  caught  from  a  hilltop  in  the 
road  the  first  glimpse  of  my  father's  house. 

We  have  had  one  of  the  most  delightful  holidays 
of  my  whole  life.  And  one  of  the  things  that  has 
made  it  exceptionally  delightful  is  that  it  was  largely 
the  gift  of  your  love  and  generosity.  The  cup  has 
been  sweet  because  your  hands  mingled  it.  It  was 
with  a  thrill  of  joyous  surprise  that  we  received  your 
largesse  on  setting  out,  and  every  dollar  seemed  to  be 
an  expression  of  your  unfailing  attachment  as  it  was 
spent. 

The  scenes  also  among  which  we  traveled  con- 
tributed to  the  enjoyment  of  our  holiday.  We  spent 
the  greater  portion  of  our  time,  as  we  planned,  in 
the  high  Alps,  in  Normandy  and  on  the  coast  of  North 
Devon  .  On  another  occasion  I  may  have  something 
to  say  about  each  one  of  these  localities,  but  this 
morning  my  heart  is  so  full  of  the  joy  of  simply  see- 
ing you  once  more  and  anticipating  another  year  of 


On  return  from  European  Travel,  Sept.,  1903. 

199 


200        GREETING  TO  CONGREGATION 

love  and  labor  that  I  have  no  memory  of  the  past. 
You  have  often  heard  me  say  that  the  minister's  lot 
is  the  happiest  in  the  world,  but  never  have  I  realized 
it  more  fully  than  at  this  moment.  To  work  with 
the  best  people  for  the  best  objects  under  the  best 
Master,  what  can  be  happier  than  that  ? 

But  turning  to  the  duties  of  the  present,  I  am 
pleased  to  see  that  devoted  hands  and  skillful  minds 
have  been  at  work  in  my  absence  restoring  and  beauti- 
fying the  rooms  of  the  Church,  and  preparing  all 
things  for  a  new  year  of  Church  life  and  Church 
work.  One  has  only  to  glance  at  these  improvements 
to  feel  not  only  that  a  good  work  has  been  done,  but 
that  it  has  been  done  under  the  personal  supervision 
of  constant  watchful  eyes,  jealous  of  the  Church  and 
her  interests. 

And  now  what  remains  but  that  we  all,  pastor 
and  people,  younger  and  older,  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren, unite  in  offering  ourselves,  body,  soul  and  spirit 
to  the  possession  and  service  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ? 
0  friends!  I  feel  that  Jesus  Christ  from  His  Cross 
and  from  His  Throne  is  just  now  making  His  strong 
and  tender  appeal  to  the  whole  of  our  life  and  that 
He  is  offering  the  whole  of  Himself  to  be  appropri- 
ated by  the  whole  of  ourselves.  He  is  offering  His 
life  to  enlarge  ours.  His  Divinity  for  our  Humanity, 
His  Power  for  our  weaknesses.  His  victories  for  our 
defeats ;  and  just  in  proportion  as  we  grasp  this  fact, 
and  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  is  ours,  and  that  He  ap- 
peals to  the  highest  and  noblest  in  us,  will  He  be 


GREETING  TO  CONGREGATION        201 

able  to  lead  us  into  the  fullness  of  His  own  power 
and  holiness.  Some  of  you  have  doubts  and  hesi- 
tancies, some  of  you  complain  that  you  cannot  see  all 
things  clearly.  No  more  can  I.  But  One  we  can  all 
see,  Jesus  Christ,  once  on  the  Cross,  now  on  the 
Throne.  Let  us  not  wait  to  solve  doubts  or  to  clear 
away  our  obscurities.  Let  us  come  immediately  to  His 
feet  and  surrender  all  our  faith  and  will  and  whole 
life  to  Him.  So  will  doubts  dissolve  themselves,  and 
darkness  become  light  in  His  presence. 

* '  I  have  a  life  with  Christ  to  live, 

But,  ere  I  live  it,  must  I  wait 
Till  learning  can  clear  answer  give 

Of  this  or  that  book's  date? 
I  have  a  life  in  Christ  to  live, 

I  have  a  death  in  Christ  to  die; — 

And  must  I  wait  till  science  give 

All  doubts  a  full  reply? 

Nay,  rather,  while  the  sea  of  doubt 
Is  raging  wildly  round  about, 
Questioning  of  life  and  death  and  sin, 
Let  me  but  creep  within 
Thy  fold,  O  Christ,  and  at  Thy  feet 

Take  but  the  lowest  seat, 
And  hear  Thine  awful  voice  repeat 
In  gentlest  accents,  heavenly  sweet, 

Come  unto  Me,  and  rest; 

Believe  Me,  and  be  blest." 


APPEAL  FOR  FUNDS  FOR  THE  DECORATION 
OF  THE  CHURCH. 

My  friends,  we  have  felt  for  several  years  that  this 
church,  this  audience  room,  ought  to  be  renovated  and 
beautified.  It  is  now  thirty-two  years  since  these 
walls  were  first  finished,  and  nothing,  or  almost  noth- 
ing, has  been  done  to  them  in  all  that  time.  The  out- 
side of  the  building  was  thoroughly  repaired  and  re- 
habilitated two  years  ago,  and  considerable  money  has 
since  been  expended  in  perfecting  the  heating  and 
ventilating  apparatus,  so  that  everything  about  the 
building  may  be  said  to  be  in  good  order  for  many 
years. 

Everything  except  these  inner  walls,  which  remain 
as  they  were,  cracked  and  marred  and  faded  and 
stained  and  soiled.  This  was  once  a  beautiful  sanctu- 
ary. It  enjoyed  the  distinction  of  being  the  most 
noble  and  beautiful  place  of  God  in  the  city.  But 
it  has  come  now  to  have  a  different  distinction.  It 
has  come  to  be  the  most  shabby  and  ill-conditioned  of 
all  the  city  churches.  The  remark  of  strangers  upon 
entering  it  is  no  longer  "What  a  beautiful  church 
this  is!",  but  "What  a  beautiful  church  this  might 
be ! "  Truly  it  might  be.  This  sanctuary  is  capable 
of  being  restored  to  its  original  eminence. 

We  have  felt  for  several  years,  as  I  said,  the  neces- 


Made  at  Sunday  morning  service,  April,  1895. 

202 


APPEAL  FOR  CHURCH  DECORATION    203 

sity  of  doing  this  work.  But  two  years  ago  it  was 
postponed  for  the  sake  of  building  the  tabernacle  for 
the  Mills  meetings.  One  year  ago  it  was  deferred 
again  on  account  of  the  financial  stringency  of  the 
times.  This  year  the  financial  conditions  are  perhaps 
less  favorable  than  last  year.  And  I  suppose  we 
should  have  postponed  this  work  a  third  time,  had  not 
a  liberal  member  of  the  congregation  come  forward  of 
his  own  will  and  offered  to  subscribe  one  thousand 
dollars  toward  beautifying  this  church,  on  condition 
that  the  work  should  be  done  this  summer. 

This  the  Trustees  of  the  Society  and  others  all  felt 
was  indeed  a  generous  proposal,  and  one  not  to  be 
lightly  forfeited.  The  more  it  was  considered  the 
more  it  was  felt  that  with  such  a  beginning  the  work 
could  be  done  now  and  done  more  easily  than  at  any 
future  time.  And  it  was  resolved  to  accept  the  offer 
with  gratitude  on  behalf  of  the  Society,  and  proceed 
at  once  to  the  work. 

The  first  thing  is  to  provide  the  funds  necessary  for 
the  work.  After  this  is  done  the  work  of  beautifying 
the  church  will  be  put  into  the  hands  of  a  competent 
committee,  who  will  have  charge  of  it  and  will  see 
that  it  is  done  in  an  acceptable  manner.  But  the 
first  thing  is  to  collect  the  money.  Estimates  of  the 
expense  have  already  been  obtained,  and  it  is  found 
that  including  such  preparation  for  the  work  as  the 
scaffolding,  and  including  the  renovation  of  the  lec- 
ture-room, parlors,  Sunday-school  rooms  and  passage- 
ways, it  will  be  necessary  to  have  in  hand  at  least 


204  APPEAL  FOR  CHURCH  DECORATION 

five  thousand  dollars.     A  soliciting   committee   has 

already  been  appointed,  consisting  of These 

gentlemen  will  visit  personally  as  many  of  the  congre- 
gation as  they  conveniently  can,  and  afterwards  every 
member  of  the  congregation  will  be  asked  to  have  a 
part  in  the  good  work. 

Now,  my  friends,  we  are  going  to  give  something 
to  beautify  this  House  of  God,  where  we  have  received 
so  much  of  all  that  is  holiest  and  best  in  our  lives, 
and  where  our  children  will  kneel  and  worship  and 
put  on  their  garments  of  holiness  after  we  have  fin- 
ished our  labors  and  entered  into  our  rest.  Oh,  how 
great  these  cathedral-like  structures  are!  Great  as 
witnesses  to  the  undying  truths  of  the  Christian 
faith ;  greater  still  in  their  subtle  silent  influence  over 
the  lives  of  men  and  women,  younger  and  older.  Men 
rise  and  fall,  preachers  live  and  die;  but  here  these 
walls  stand  above  the  smoke  and  storm,  above  the 
din  of  noisy  streets,  above  things  which  are  fair  and 
beautiful  and  things  which  are  base  and  mean.  Here 
they  stand,  and  in  a  manner  which  seems  sometimes  al- 
most patient  and  pathetic  they  testify  of  the  higher  life 
of  the  soul  and  bear  witness  to  the  power  of  prayer 
and  point  to  the  Father's  house  on  high.  Oh,  there 
is  no  object  to  which  it  is  a  greater  satisfaction  to  me 
to  give  than  to  a  noble  church  of  Jesus  Christ. 

"We  cannot  raise  this  money  at  this  time  without 
feeling  it,  my  friends.  We  cannot  raise  it  without 
giving  to  the  point  of  self-denial,  and  I  am  not  sorry 
for  that.    No  giving  is  so  dear  to  God  and  none  is  so 


APPEAL  FOR  CHURCH  DECORATION    205 

blessed  to  the  giver  as  that  which  is  mingled  with 
self-denial.  I  do  not  know  what  the  Master  will  say 
at  the  last  to  us  ministers  who  never  asked  our  people 
to  deny  themselves  for  Him.  I  do  not  know  what  the 
people  themselves  will  say  when  they  learn  what 
they  have  lost  in  not  denying  themselves  for  the 
Saviour.  I  want  you  to  make  sacrifices.  Oh,  I  could 
wish  that  this  whole  church  were  frescoed  with  sacri- 
fice. I  could  wish  that  every  window  through  which 
God's  light  streams  in  were  a  sacrifice-window,  and 
that  every  sacred  object  upon  which  the  light  falls 
were  a  gift  of  sacrifice. 

One  thing  more — this  work  is  not  to  be  done  by  a 
few.  We  must  all  claim  a  part  in  this  good  work. 
Every  man  and  woman  and  child  must  be  able  to  say 
hereafter,  ''I  had  a  part  in  the  beautifying  of  the 
place  of  my  Saviour's  Feet."  There  must  be  not 
only  one  hundred  and  two  hundred  dollar  subscrip- 
tions, but  also  ten  and  five  and  one  dollar  ones 


APPEAL  FOR  CONFESSION   OF   THE 
LORD  JESUS  CHRIST. 

Dear  friends,  I  want  to  say  a  few  words  to  some 
of  you  this  morning  as  it  were  face  to  face.  I  want 
to  ask  you  to  settle  the  great  question  of  your  salva- 
tion at  this  time  by  accepting  Jesus  Christ  as  your 
Lord  and  Saviour  and  becoming  His  confessed  fol- 
lowers and  saved  souls  henceforward  and  forever. 

I  am  deeply  concerned  for  some  of  you.  I  have 
preached  the  Gospel  of  God's  love  to  you  year  after 
year  and  have  seen  you  coming  near  to  the  Kingdom 
of  God  and  yet  stopping  just  short  of  passing  in. 
You  seem  to  me  to  be  standing  at  this  moment  where 
one  decided  step  would  bring  you  into  the  sphere 
of  God 's  light  and  peace,  and  make  you  possessors  of 
everlasting  life.  Tour  right  convictions  of  truth, 
your  attractive  moral  virtues,  your  natural  associa- 
tions in  life,  are  such  as  bring  you  near  to  the  gospel 
of  salvation.  There  is  but  a  line  between  you  and 
eternal  life  on  earth  and  in  heaven,  and  one  step 
may  cross  it. 

I  look  into  your  faces  and  think  of  the  young  man 
whom  Jesus  once  looked  upon  and  loved  and  then  said 
to  him,  *  *  One  thing  thou  lackest. ' '  "What  that  young 
man  lacked,  what  you  lack,  is  that  one  act  of  free 
choice  and  deliberate  decision  which  God  never  will 


Made  in  the  First  Church,  Binghamton,  February,  1907. 

206 


APPEAL  FOR  CONFESSION  OF  CHRIST  207 

dispense  with  nor  ever  force  upon  any  soul  of  man, 
the  act  of  simply  putting  yourself  into  the  hand  of 
God's  mercy  and  choosing  and  confessing  Jesus  Christ 
as  your  Lord  and  Saviour.  So  much  you  must  do. 
Without  submission  and  confession  no  man  shall  see 
the  Lord.  Think  of  going  into  the  presence  of  a 
King  to  whom  you  have  never  declared  your  alle- 
giance. Think  of  resting  your  eyes  upon  a  Saviour 
whose  dying  love  you  have  never  owned  by  one  word 
of  confession.  "Whosoever  shall  confess  me  before 
men,  him  will  I  also  confess  before  my  Father  which 
is  in  heaven.  But  whosoever  shall  deny  me  before 
men,  him  will  I  also  deny  before  my  Father  which  is 
in  heaven.'' 

0  my  brother,  my  sister,  when  I  see  how  God  in 
great  mercy  has  brought  you  near  to  the  Gospel  Feast 
and  has  placed  the  vacant  chair  at  the  Table  and 
is  waiting,  waiting,  waiting  to  hear  you  simply  say, 
' '  1  will  take  it,  I  receive  Thee,  0  Lord  Jesus,  with  all 
my  heart  and  will  be  Thine  forever" — when  I  think 
of  the  great  overshadowing  eternity  and  the  tremend- 
ous realities  of  life  and  death,  of  blessedness  and 
misery  which  it  contains  for  every  one  of  us,  and  then 
when  I  think  that  to  put  any  one  of  you  right  with  God 
needs  but  one  humble  noble  step  and  that  the  step 
may  be  taken  this  hour  in  the  secret  of  the  soul,  I 
cannot  lay  do"v^^l  my  charge  of  this  Church  without 
throwing  the  arms  of  my  heart  around  each  one  of 
you  and  entreating  you  to  be  reconciled  to  God  by 
at  once  accepting  and  confessing  Jesus  Christ  Whom 


208  APPEAL  FOR  CONFESSION  OF  CHRIST 

He  has  given  to  be  your  Saviour.  0  friends,  Jesus 
Christ  really  loves  you,  has  loved  you  long.  Jesus 
Christ  died  for  you.  Jesus  Christ  even  now  is  bending 
over  you  with  eyes  of  inexpressible  solicitude.  Shall 
He  not  see  you  deciding  for  Him  this  morning? 
Shall  He  not  see  you  coming  to  His  feast  of  love  an 
earnest  confessing  Christian,  the  sure  pledge  that  He 
has  chosen  you  and  that  you  will  enter  Heaven  at 
last? 


ADDKESS  AT  HOLY  COMMUNION. 

Once  more,  dear  friends,  we  are  called  into  our 
Saviour's  banqueting-house.  Once  more  His  gra- 
cious voice  is  heard  in  our  ears,  ''Eat,  0  friends; 
drink,  yea,  drink  abundantly,  0  beloved."  Be  the 
answer  of  our  hearts  "Draw  us,  0  Lord,  and  'we  will 
run  after  thee;  we  will  rejoice  and  be  glad  in  thee; 
we  will  remember  thy  love  more  than  wine. '  ' ' 

This  feast  is  a  reality.  This  approach  to  the  Lord's 
table  is  an  actual  transaction  between  our  sinful 
needy  persons  and  the  all-holy,  all-blessed  Person, 
our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ.  Let  us  try  to 
master  that  thought  in  the  first  place.  The  world 
looks  upon  Jesus  as  dead.  It  regards  Him  as  a  person 
who  once  lived  but  is  living  no  longer.  It  reads  His 
life  and  death  as  it  reads  the  life  and  death  of 
Socrates,  finding  many  touching  and  impressive 
things  in  it,  but  not  accounting  that  the  Author  of 
it  is  at  this  moment  a  secret  invisible  Presence  not  far 
from  any  one  of  us  and  willing  to  manifest  Himself 
graciously  to  all  who  seek  Him  in  faith  and  love  and 
adoration  . 

Dear  friends,  what  a  thought  it  is  that  we  are  actu- 
ally coming  into  the  immediate  presence  of  the  same 
divine  Person  whom  Nicodemus  visited  by  night, 
whom  Mary  and  Martha  lodged  and  loved  at  their 


December,  1877. 

209 


210       ADDRESS  AT  HOLY  COMMUNION 

home  in  Bethany,  whom  St.  John  leaned  upon  at  the 
Supper,  whom  so  many  sick  and  helpless  in  Galilee 
sought  and  not  one  was  turned  empty  away!  "What 
holy  awe,  what  reverence,  what  faith,  what  expecta- 
tion, ought  to  fill  and  animate  our  inmost  souls! 
Nothing  seems  to  me  so  sad  and  sinful  too  as  that 
we  should  come  to  this  feast  and  go  away  unblessed 
simply  for  not  realizing  what  we  are  doing,  for  not 
setting  our  minds  upon  its  significance  and  opening 
our  hearts  to  believe  that  which  is  freely  given  unto 
us. 

But  I  will  tell  you  what  I  have  found.  I  have 
found  that  I  never  feel  Christ  to  be  a  reality  in  this 
sacrament  until  I  first  feel  Him  to  be  a  necessity. 
Just  in  proportion  as  I  know  my  need  of  Him  I  am 
made  to  know  His  grace  to  me.  He  presents  Him- 
self to  me  as  I  present  myself  to  Him.  "When  I  come 
to  this  table  sensible  of  my  utter  ill-desert  and  utter 
impenitence,  feeling  that  I  am  wholly  lost  and  that 
Christ  is  all  there  is  left  to  me,  conscious  that  I  de- 
serve nothing  and  almost  fearing  to  ask  or  expect 
anything,  precisely  at  such  times,  when  I  am  at  my 
lowest,  Christ  appears  at  His  greatest,  arrayed  in  the 
full  honors  of  His  infinite  compassion  and  almighty 
sufficing.  He  gives  me  pardon  and  righteousness, 
peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  He  gives  me  a 
sense  of  union  with  Himself  in  an  eternal  friendship. 
The  sacrament  becomes  a  real  and  blessed  intercourse 
of  spirit  with  spirit,  of  want  with  grace,  of  the  human 
with  the  divine. 


ADDRESS  AT  HOLY  COMMUNION       211 

Another  thing  I  have  found.  I  have  found  that 
both  my  necessity  and  Christ's  reality  are  then  most 
felt  by  me  when  I  dwell  most  thoughtfully  and  thank- 
fully upon  His  sufferings  in  my  behalf.  It  is  very 
happy  to  gather  inside  of  the  Christian  sanctuary  and 
sit  down  with  one  another  in  holy  fellowship  under 
the  sheltering  atonement  of  our  Saviour  and  the 
protecting  favor  of  our  heavenly  Father.  Very 
happy,  but  ah,  dear  friends,  it  has  cost  something.  It 
has  cost  something  to  give  us  this  table,  this  com- 
munion of  the  saints,  these  spiritual  positions,  these 
heavenly  hopes.  Gethsemane  and  Pilate's  judgment- 
hall  and  Golgotha  gave  us  these.  We  sit  here  to-day 
and  confess  our  sins  and  put  away  our  fears  and  re- 
joice in  hopes  because  the  Son  of  God  hung  on  three 
great  wounds  until  He  died. 

But  while  we  think  with  awe  and  amazement  of 
the  expense  of  our  salvation  we  must  also  think  with 
confidence  and  satisfaction  of  its  completeness.  No 
wonder  this  is  a  great  and  incomprehensible  feast. 
No  wonder  that  gifts  of  pardon  and  eternal  life  are 
bestowed  here  freely  as  the  sun  gives  light  and  the 
clouds  rain.  No  wonder  that  for  the  chief  of  sinners 
forgiveness  is  made  ready  and  joy  prepared.  This  is 
a  feast  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  equal  and  eternal  Son 
of  God. 

One  thought  further  which  comes  with  the  season. 
It  is  our  last  communion  service  of  the  year.  Six 
more  of  these  gifts  of  the  Son  of  God  are  numbered 
with  the  things  of  the  past.     It  is  no  inconsiderable 


212       ADDRESS  AT  HOLY  COMMUNION 

portion  of  the  longest  life  among  us.  To  some  it  is 
undoubtedly  more  than  remains.  Let  us  seek  to-day 
fuller  and  higher  consecration.  These  offered  tokens 
encourage  us.  They  promise  forgiveness  for  the  past 
and  strength  for  a  higher,  holier  life  in  the  future. 
They  assure  us  that  if  we  will  but  believe  and  give 
ourselves  wholly  up  to  seek  God's  pleasure  and  to  do 
His  will  we  shall  be  able  at  life's  end  to  say  with 
confidence  *'It  is  finished,"  not  with  our  own  feeble 
tremulous  voice,  but  in  the  strong  full-toned  resonant 
cry  of  our  Lord  and  Redeemer. 


THE  LOVE  OF  GOD. 

A  Children's  Sermon. 

Something  happened  the  other  day,  or  rather  some- 
thing was  said  about  preaching  to  children  and  about 
the  effect  of  a  sermon  to  children  in  this  Church,  that 
made  me  think  I  should  like  to  take  up  again  my 
custom  of  speaking  a  few  words  to  you  boys  and 
girls  at  this  point  in  the  service.  And  when  I  asked 
myself  ''What  shall  I  speak  about?"  one  thing  ran 
up  and  crowded  all  others  back,  saying  ''Speak  to 
the  children  about  me,  speak  about  me.''  The  thing 
which  so  took  possession  of  me  and  asked  for  speech 
was  The  Love  of  God.  This  is  what  Solomon  said  of 
love,  "Many  waters  cannot  quench  love,  neither  can 
the  floods  drown  it :  if  a  man  would  give  all  the  sub- 
stance of  his  house  for  love,  it  would  utterly  be  con- 
temned." And  this  is  what  an  old  African  woman, 
who  had  known  about  the  love  of  God  from  a  mis- 
sionary, said: — "If  I  were  to  go  to  yonder  forest  and 
cut  down  all  the  trees  and  make  a  long,  long  ladder 
of  them  and  then  take  it  and  set  it  upon  the  highest 
mountain,  I  could  not  reach  the  top  of  God's  love. 
And  if  I  were  to  dig  all  the  iron  out  of  the  earth 
and  make  the  longest  of  long  chains  and  then  go  down 
with  it  into  a  deep  well,  I  could  not  get  to  the  bottom 
of  God's  love.     It  is  like  the  sunlight  at  noonday, 


Preached  in  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  Binghamton,  1898. 
213 


214  A  CHILDREN'S  SERMON 

all  around  you  and  above  you  and  before  you  and 
behind  you.  It  is  forgiveness  and  strength  and  glad- 
ness, and  to  believe  it  is  to  be  saved. ' ' 

Love  is  of  two  kinds  or  orders,  a  higher  and  a 
lower,  and  one  creates  the  other.  There  is  the  love 
which  God  has  to  us,  and  there  is  the  love  which  we 
have  or  ought  to  have  to  God  and  to  one  another.  It 
is  the  former,  it  is  God's  love  to  us,  which  is  the 
wonderful  thing.  One  told  me  the  other  day  of  a 
little  boy  who  asked  his  mother  ''Do  you  love  me?" 
* '  Of  course  I  do, ' '  she  replied,  kissing  him  again  and 
again.  "Put  your  hand  to  my  heart  and  feel  how 
full  it  is  of  love  for  you."  "Yes,  I'm  sure  it  is 
there,"  he  replied,  "but  I  want  to  hear  it  come  out 
in  speaking,  I  do." 

"Would  you,  children,  like  to  hear  God's  love  for 
you  come  out  in  speaking?  You  have  only  to  think 
of  the  Lord  Jesus,  how  He  came  out  of  God's  heaven 
and  was  born  in  a  stable  and  laid  in  a  manger  and 
spent  His  life  doing  good  and  died  on  the  Cross  for 
us.  Yes,  this  is  the  way  of  it.  God  is  love.  God's 
infinite  unfathomable  heart  is  full  of  love  to  you,  to 
me,  to  all,  and  when  He  took  out  of  His  bosom  all  the 
Son  He  had  and  freely  gave  Him  up  for  us  all,  that 
was  just  God's  love  coming  out  in  speaking  so  that 
we  could  hear  it  down  here  and  believe  it  and  be  saved 
by  believing  it.  And  this  is  what  it  is  and  all  it  is 
to  be  a  Christian.  It  is  to  believe  this  love  which 
God  has  to  us  and  has  spoken  out  to  us  in  Christ. 
It  is  to  believe  the  great  love  of  God  and  let  it  flow 


A  CHILDREN'S  SERMON  215 

from  the  Cross  of  Christ  into  our  hearts,  taking  away 
all  our  sins,  filling  us  to  the  brim  and  constraining  us 
to  say,  *'0  Thou  who  lovest  me  with  everlasting  love, 
take  me,  and  make  me  good  and  useful." 

Children,  when  we  have  received  this  great  love  of 
God  into  our  hearts,  we  can  no  longer  be  hard  and 
wicked  and  selfish.  The  new  heart  is  given  us — ^we 
forget  about  self  and  think  about  pleasing  the  Lord 
Jesus  and  making  others  happy  for  His  sake.  I  think 
I  can  make  this  plain  to  you  by  a  story. 

It  is  about  the  master  of  a  ship  who  was  sailing  in 
the  African  Seas  and  had  aboard  his  vessel  a  lot  of 
rescued  slaves.  They  were  poor,  ignorant,  unclean 
things,  naked,  black,  and  almost  as  hideous  as  the 
gorillas  that  swing  about  in  the  trees  of  Africa. 
They  were  being  carried  back  to  their  native  land, 
from  which  they  had  been  stolen.  They  were  lying 
about  in  heaps,  fed  like  animals  and  despised  and 
shunned  by  the  very  men  who  had  rescued  them. 

The  negroes  understood  that  they  were  being  car- 
ried back  to  their  homes  to  be  set  free,  and  they  were 
glad  of  that,  but  they  were  not  happy,  for  they  felt 
they  were  despised  by  the  Englishmen,  and  they  were 
human  beings  with  hearts  that  could  suffer.  One 
bright  still  day  as  the  ship  was  slowly  moving  over 
the  placid  sea  there  was  heard  a  thud  and  a  splash. 
It  could  only  mean  one  thing.  One  of  the  slaves  had 
fallen  overboard.  The  man  nearest  to  the  spot  and 
first  to  see  it  was  the  master  of  the  ship.  He  was 
dressed  in  the  uniform  of  his  rank,  he  belonged  to  a 


216  A  CHILDREN'S  SERMON 

noble  family,  lie  was  a  graduate  of  a  great  University 
and  had  his  admiralty  certificates.  But  in  one  second 
he  was  nothing  but  a  man.  He  forgot  his  degrees, 
his  honors,  his  expectations.  He  forgot  the  great 
weight  of  the  helpless  creature  struggling  in  the 
water.  He  forgot  that  the  sea  was  full  of  sharks. 
He  forgot  everything  but  the  drowning  man.  Off 
went  his  cap,  his  coat,  and  down  into  the  water 
plunged  the  officer.  In  an  instant  busy  hands  were 
slackening  the  ship  and  lowering  a  boat  while  others 
were  leaning  over  the  ship's  side  with  pointed  guns 
reading  to  fire  at  the  sharks.  Hearts  stood  still.  Men 
held  their  breath.  Seconds  seemed  like  hours  while 
that  brave  captain  was  matching  what  seemed  a 
worthless  negro  with  his  own  skill  and  strength  and 
imperilled  life.  Finally  he  slowly  rose  to  the  surface 
with  his  heavy  burden.  A  boat  was  instantly  at  the 
spot  and  strong  hands  drew  him  up  with  the  negro 
into  the  boat  and  rowed  them  back  to  the  ship.  Then 
when  the  master  appeared  on  the  ship  and  the  ne- 
groes all  saw  him  wet  and  exhausted  from  saving  one 
of  them  from  death  a  strange  impulse  took  hold  of 
them.  They  began  to  breathe  deep  low  sounds,  they 
crept  near  him,  they  stroked  his  legs,  they  touched 
his  hand  with  their  finger-tips,  they  knelt  and  bowed 
their  faces  at  his  feet,  they  wept  like  children,  he 
was  so  beautiful,  so  divine  to  them.  They  saw  in  him 
the  love  of  God  coming  out  in  speaking — he  was  an 
image  of  the  Crucified. 
When  the  officer  arrived  in  England  he  found  that 


A  CHILDREN'S  SERMON  217 

his  deed  had  somehow  gone  before  him.  The  nation  had 
honored  him  and  the  Royal  Humane  Society  was  wait- 
ing to  pin  a  medal  on  him.  But  a  brighter  medal 
was  the  approval  of  Heaven  and  the  pleasure  in  him 
which  the  Lord  Jesus  pinned  on  his  self-sacrificing 
heart.  Boys  and  girls  of  this  congregation,  what  have 
you  done  for  Him  who  leaped  into  the  sea  of  your 
sins'  consequences  and  rescued  your  souls  from 
everlasting  death  ?  The  Royal  Society  of  Heaven  has 
l)inned  a  medal  upon  Him.  But  what  have  you  done  ? 
0,  I  tell  you  that  dearer  to  Him  than  the  medals  of 
the  angels  would  it  be  for  you,  boys  and  girls,  to  give 
your  hearts  to  Him. 

*' Glory  to  God  in  the  highest." 


REPORT  ON  SYNODICAIj  HOME  MISSIONS. 

Moderator  and  Brethren: 

No  Presbytery  in  the  State  of  New  York  has  greater 
reason  to  be  interested  in  Synodical  Home  Missions 
than  the  Presbytery  of  Binghamton.  No  other  Pres- 
bytery has  so  large  a  proportion  of  its  churches  de- 
pendent on  Synodical  aid.  Of  the  32  churches  in 
our  Presbytery,  15  are  found  on  the  roll  of  Synodical 
Home  Missions  and  two  or  three  more  are  approach- 
ing it.  A  full  half  of  our  Presbytery  is  simply  one 
broad  mission  field. 

Now  we  all  appreciate  the  need  of  missions  in  for- 
eign lands  and  the  need  of  missions  in  the  far  west. 
That  need  has  the  magic  of  romance  upon  it.  That 
need  is  sounded  in  our  ears  every  day  in  the  year  by 
the  most  eloquent  tongues  of  the  church  and  nation 
and  it  cannot  be  sounded  too  often  or  too  loudly. 
But  here  is  a  need  invested  with  no  glamour  of  ro- 
mance, voiced  by  no  golden  tongues,  a  low  plaint 
which  we  scarcely  hear  because  it  is  so  close  at  hand. 
It  has  been  observed  by  an  earnest  pleader  for  ^jn- 
odical  Missions  as  a  strange  thing  in  some  human 
nature  that  a  cry  which  comes  from  afar  seems  much 
more  affecting  and  appealing  than  when  it  is  heard 
from  the  next  door.  With  some,  as  he  remarks,  *  *  The 
need  of  Synodical  Missions  is  not  far  enough  away  to 


Presented  to  the  Presbytery  of  Binghamton  on  April  15,  1907. 

218 


REPORT  ON  SYNODICAL  MISSIONS    219 

be  appreciated."  It  is  only  over  there  in  the  next 
town.  It  is  only  in  that  little  hamlet  we  have  always 
known  so  well.  Synodical  Missions  is  like  a  prophet 
in  his  own  country,  without  honor,  but  not  without 
a  special  claim  to  be  heard. 

Consider  the  claim  of  Synodical  Missions,  what  it 
is.  It  is  a  family  cry.  It  has  the  accent  of  a  household 
plea.  It  is  the  obligation  to  care  for  our  own.  They  are 
our  own  kith  and  kin,  our  own  neighboring  communi- 
ties, places  where  some  of  us  were  born,  twice  born,  after 
the  flesh  and  after  the  Spirit,  these  little  country 
churches  which  year  by  year  are  being  impoverished 
and  reduced  by  having  their  life  blood  drained  away 
to  the  cities. 

They  are  our  own  comrades  and  chums,  educated 
with  us  in  the  same  college  and  seminary,  bound  up 
with  us  as  brothers  beloved  in  the  same  Presbyterial 
fraternity,  these  missionary  ministers  who  are  figur- 
ing and  economizing  and  foregoing  in  trying  to  do 
the  work  of  their  churches  faithfully  and  maintain 
their  families  on  salaries  of  six  hundred,  five  hundred, 
four  hundred  dollars  a  year. 

Brethren,  it  is  time  we  awoke  to  a  fuller  apprecia- 
tion of  the  difficulties  and  discouragements  of  the 
ministers  and  memberships  of  our  mission  churches. 
The  ministers  are  isolated,  without  the  sympathetic 
touch  of  brother  clasping  the  hand  of  brother  to  in- 
spire and  reinforce,  without  the  surrounding  atmos- 
phere of  responsiveness  to  aspirations  and  ideals  to 
kindle  and  inflame,  too  often  without,  with  shame  be 


220    EEPORT  ON  SYNODICAL  MISSIONS 

it  said,  sufficient  salaries,  for  what?  To  set  their 
minds  at  ease  and  liberate  their  powers;  to  lay  on 
their  tables  a  new  book  now  and  then ;  to  taste  the  in- 
vigorations  of  an  occasional  holiday?  No,  not  that, 
but  without  sufficient  salaries  to  meet  the  first  necessi- 
ties of  their  households  and  to  live  and  dress  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  save  them  from  humiliation  in  their  own 
eyes  and  disrespect  in  the  eyes  of  the  community. 

And  not  only  the  ministers  but  the  rural  population 
themselves  are  isolated  and  depressed  by  hard  work, 
by  bad  roads,  by  constant  removal  of  helpful  families, 
by  invasion  of  foreign  immigrants  who  care  the  least 
for  the  interests  of  religion  and  traditions  of  the 
church,  by  increasing  indifference,  illiteracy  and  de- 
generacy. It  is  a  pathetic  sight  if  ever  was  one,  a 
church  once  strong  and  enthusiastic  in  its  aims,  hopes 
and  labors,  once  the  cherished  home  and  object  of 
faithful  men  and  devoted  women,  gradually  falling 
into  decay,  growing  weaker  and  weaker  and  finally 
uttering  its  expiring  breath  from  deserted  aisles, 
broken  windows,  and  closed  doors.  These  are  the  con- 
ditions which  Synodical  Missions  has  to  deal  with, 
which  this  agency  alone  is  trying  to  meet,  and  thus 
helping  to  solve  what  is  called  ' '  the  rural  problem. ' ' 

But,  brethren,  this  is  only  one  aspect  of  the  matter. 
There  is  another  side.  No  grander  opportunity  is 
there  in  the  world,  no  higher  work,  than  that  which 
is  given  to  the  missionary  minister  in  these  days. 
For  what  is  given  him  ?  The  people  who  belong  to  his 
little  church  and  whom  he  sees  before  him  from  Sun- 


REPORT  ON  SYNODICAL  MISSIONS    221 

day  to  Sunday?  The  minister  who  limits  his  vision 
and  bounds  his  field  in  that  way  will  be  pretty  sure 
to  carry  about  a  sad  countenance  and  a  poor  opinion 
of  his  opportunity.  But  the  minister  who  bounds  his 
parish  by  all  the  people  within  his  reach  whether 
in  the  church  or  out  of  it,  the  minister  who  feels 
as  Calvin  felt  in  Geneva  that  his  opportunity  is  not 
seized  and  his  joy  is  not  fulfilled  until  ''Through 
center  and  through  outskirts  every  household  is  touch- 
ed, every  household  believes,  every  household  prays," 
such  a  Synodical  missionary,  whether  in  town  or  coun- 
try, will  never  be  without  a  great  divine  feeling  of  the 
importance  of  his  position  and  the  magnitude  of  his 
work. 

Such  a  Synodical  missionary  will  have  all  the  flam- 
ing ardor,  all  the  quenchless  passion  for  men,  all  the 
conscious  nothingness  in  himself  and  conscious  om- 
nipotence in  Christ  which  any  foreign  missionary  ever 
had.  For  he  will  be  a  shepherd  caring  not  only  for 
his  little  flock  of  saved  souls,  but  a  shepherd  going 
out  in  the  regions  beyond  and  scouring  the  hills 
and  valleys  for  the  unsaved  and  unsought. 
(Financial  details.)    

The  Committee  has  asked  itself  and  asked  the  Pres- 
bytery what  course  it  should  pursue  in  order  to  save 
our  missionaries  from  disappointment.  Presbytery 
has  already  answered  this  question  by  adopting  a 
courageous  resolution  which  directs  the  Committee  to 
add  ten  per  cent,  to  the  various  amounts  required  of 
the   churches   in  the  present   apportionment.      This 


222    REPORT  ON  SYNODICAL  MISSIONS 

means  that  where  the  Committee  has  written  $20  as 
the  church  quota,  the  church  shall  write  $22,  where 
it  has  asked  $70,  the  church  shall  respond  with  $77, 
where  it  has  apportioned  $100  the  church  shall  make 
its  apportionment  $110. 

Brethren,  will  you  do  this?  "Will  you  all  do  it? 
Will  you  go  home  and  lay  this  matter  before  your 
congregations  and  plead  with  them  for  the  sake  of  the 
cause  of  Christ  in  our  weak  churches,  and  for  the 
sake  of  our  half-supported  missionary  ministers,  to  be 
generous  and  bear  the  burdens  of  others  and  so  fulfil 
the  law  of  Him  who  died  for  us  all? 

G.  Parsons  Nichols, 
Chairman. 


AN  ORDINATION  CHARGE. 

It  is  among  the  traditional  usages  of  our  church, 
that  after  a  young  man  has  been  set  apart  to  the  holy 
ministry  by  the  laying  on  of  the  hands  of  presbytery, 
a  solemn  charge  is  delivered  to  him  with  reference  to 
his  duties  and  obligations. 

The  word  charge  has  a  somewhat  ominous  sound. 
To  deliver  a  charge  to  a  person  gives  the  impression 
of  standing  off  and  handing  down  to  him  his  duties 
and  the  obligations  to  their  faithful  performance. 

But  I  do  not  wish  to  stand  off  from  you  to-night, 
my  son,  I  wish  to  stand  by  your  side  as  a  comrade  and 
companion  in  service.  Nor  do  I  wish  to  charge  you. 
To  inspire,  to  encourage,  to  open  a  new  view  of  your 
work,  to  speak  some  word  by  which  the  ministry 
should  be  exalted  in  your  sight  and  endeared  to  your 
heart  forever,  would  be  a  joy  indeed.  But  for  charg- 
ing I  have  small  heart. 

But  though  I  may  not  deliver  a  charge  I  would  like 
to  speak  a  few  words  with  you  about  this  ministry 
in  which  by  the  grace  of  God  both  of  us  are  now 
servants.  What  a  great,  solemn,  blessed  min- 
istry it  is !  So  great  that  no  human  being  can  meas- 
ure it,  so  solemn  that  if  its  responsibilities  were  fully 
weighed  perhaps  few  persons  would  venture  it,  so 
blessed  that  archangels  wish  to  engage  in  it.     It  is 


Given  at  the  ordination  of  Robert  Hastings  Nichols,  in  the  First 
Presbyterian  Church,  Binghamton,  October  11,  1901. 

223 


224  AN  ORDINATION  CHARGE 

the  consecration  of  a  life  to  the  service  of  men  in 
their  moral  and  spiritual  interests.  Its  first,  its  most 
important  work  is  preaching.  No  other  work  of  the 
ministry  compares  with  that  of  the  pulpit.  To  make 
his  pulpit  his  throne,  to  concentrate  all  his  intellectual 
and  spiritual  forces  upon  his  message,  to  make  it  the 
business  and  joy  of  his  life  to  preach,  is  the  secret 
of  a  successful  minister.  ''What  is  your  hobby?''  a 
lady  asked  Dr.  Joseph  Parker.  ''Preaching,"  he  re- 
plied. "Yes,  I  know,  but  apart  from  that." 
' '  Madam,  there  is  nothing  apart  from  that. ' ' 

What  is  preaching?  Preaching  is  telling  men  the 
good  news  that  God  has  redeemed  this  world  through 
Jesus  Christ.  Preaching  is  proclaiming  the  truth  of 
God  for  man's  redemption  as  it  is  revealed  in  the 
Bible,  embodied  in  Jesus  Christ,  illustrated,  con- 
firmed, corroborated  by  all  nature,  all  science,  all  his- 
tory, all  philosophy,  all  art,  all  things  in  heaven  and 
earth.  Preaching  is  God's  power  for  the  salvation  of 
mankind  in  this  life  and  in  that  to  come. 

We  are  told  that  we  make  too  much  of  preaching. 
We  are  told  that  we  ought  to  depend  more  upon 
beautiful  music,  gorgeous  robes,  solemn  services,  im- 
posing ceremonies.  The  whole  questions  turns  on  an- 
other question — ^What  is  God's  method  of  saving  lost 
men?  If  His  method  be  music  and  robes  and  cere- 
monies, if  these  things  rather  than  preaching  be  the 
power  of  God  unto  salvation,  then  we  certainly  ought 
to  quit  preaching  and  devote  ourselves  to  bands  and 
vestments  and  celebrations.    But  if  St.  Paul  is  right, 


AN  ORDINATION  CHARGE  225 

if  God  has  determined  to  save  men  by  the  foolishness 
of  preaching,  then  we  must  preach  on  and  never  quit 
preaching  until  the  whole  world  is  brought  into  alle- 
giance to  Jesus  Christ. 

In  thinking  what  you  and  I  need  most  to  preach 
the  Gospel  as  it  ought  to  be  preached,  comes  first  to 
my  mind  this,  a  Christ-filled  life.  By  a  Christ-filled 
life  I  do  not  mean  any  second  visitation  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  or  any  new  refinement  of  doctrine  or  experi- 
ence. I  mean  a  life  quickened,  illumined,  energized 
by  the  indwelling  presence  and  power  of  Christ 
through  the  Holy  Spirit.  I  mean  a  burning  heart  of 
divine  love,  a  soul  aflame  with  the  passion  of  glorify- 
ing God  and  winning  souls  for  Jesus  Christ. 

Dr.  Whyte,  of  St.  George's,  Edinburgh,  tells  us 
how  as  a  young  minister  he  thought  the  preaching 
power  was  the  principal  thing,  but  it  was  not  until 
after  years  of  groping  he  learned  that  preaching 
power  has  its  chief  root  in  spiritual  life.  We  hear 
about  a  blight  upon  the  ministry.  We  hear  about 
ministers  who  after  leaving  the  seminary  sink  down 
year  by  year  into  a  lowered  tone  of  thought  and  aspi- 
ration, into  a  dimming  vision  of  truth  and  duty,  into 
a  narrowed  sphere  of  service  and  usefulness.  We 
hear  about  ministers  becoming  spent  forces  in  middle 
life.  The  reason  is  they  do  not  see  enough  of  God. 
It  is  a  blight  of  low  spirituality.  He  who  keeps  the 
sacred  fire  burning  in  his  own  heart  will  never  lose 
the  power  of  kindling  other  hearts  with  life  and  heat. 
Christ-filled  preachers  are  life-imparting  preachers. 


226  AN  ORDINATION  CHARGE 

But  there  is  no  preaching  power  where  there  is  no 
spirituality. 

The  second  great  thing  of  which  I  feel  we  ministers 
have  need  is  a  firm  grip  of  the  Bible  as  the  Word  of 
God  and  a  strong  intellectual  conception  of  the  sys- 
tem of  divine  truth  which  the  Bible  contains.  It  is  a 
happy  thing  that  we  have  not  to  preach  to  needy  men 
our  poor  shallow  selves,  that  we  have  a  great  divine 
human  Person  to  preach  and  a  system  of  bright  efful- 
gent facts  and  truths  round  that  Person.  In  the 
transcendent  facts  of  Jesus  Christ's  incarnation,  life, 
death,  resurrection;  in  the  wonderful  truths  revealed 
by  Jesus  Christ  and  His  apostles  concerning  God, 
man,  sin,  grace,  salvation,  repentance,  faith,  love,  the 
Holy  Spirit,  the  future  everlasting  life,  in  these  is 
hidden  the  power  of  Christianity,  the  power  of 
preaching.  The  minister  who  grasps  with  head  and 
heart  these  heaven-given  facts  and  truths  will  not 
only  be  a  strong  man  himself,  he  will  help  others  to 
be  strong  and  happy  and  he  will  never  exhaust  his 
subject.  But  the  preacher  who  fails  to  draw  from 
these  eternal  spring-heads  is  doomed  to  failure  as 
surely  as  one  of  our  summer  brooks  is  doomed  to  run 
dry  in  July. 

Effective  preaching  comes  of  vigorous  thinking 
and  whole-souled  believing  in  God's  word.  *' Noth- 
ing odd  lasts,"  says  Dr.  Johnson.  "Nothing  odd 
lasts.''  But  the  old  old  Book  lasts,  the  great  dear 
sad  Cross  lasts,  and  just  as  long  as  we  bring  the 
Book  and  the  Cross  to  man's  need,  man's  sin,  man's 


AN  ORDINATION  CHARGE  227 

heart-liTinger,  our  preaching  will  last.  But  where  the 
Bible  is  treated  as  mere  literature  and  the  Cross  is 
hidden  out  of  sight,  where  thought  is  vague  and  faith 
is  dead,  there  may  continue  to  be  reasoning  and  moral- 
izing, but  preaching  which  is  the  power  of  God  unto 
salvation  cannot  possibly  be.  It  has  been  said  that 
**the  true  preacher  is  he  who  deals  out  to  his  people 
his  own  life  passed  through  the  fire  of  thought.  '*  The 
statement  contains  at  once  a  positive  error  and  a  pro- 
found truth.  The  error  is  the  assumption  that  the 
preacher  deals  out  his  own  life.  The  profound  truth 
is  the  implication  that  whatever  a  man  really  preaches 
to  others  must  first  have  passed  through  the  fire  of 
his  own  thought  and  fed  his  own  soul.  We  are  not 
merely  mouth  organs  and  trumpets,  my  brother.  The 
truth  of  God  is  not  merely  taken  into  our  intellects 
and  blown  out  through  our  mouths.  If  we  be  real 
genuine  preachers,  our  message,  before  ever  we  utter 
it,  has  gone  down  into  all  the  deepest  places  of  our 
life  and  experience  and  so  goes  out  from  us  informed 
and  infused  with  all  the  strength  of  conviction  and 
fire  of  earnestness  that  is  in  us.  We  will  revise  Dr. 
Clifford's  statement,  and  say  the  true  preacher  is  he 
who  deals  out  to  his  people  the  truth  and  grace  of 
God  passed  through  the  fires  of  his  own  thought  and 
experience  . 

There  is  another  thing  we  need  in  order  to  preach 
the  Gospel  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  it  ought  to  be 
preached.  We  need  a  spirit  of  abounding  sympathy 
with  men.    Our  message  must  '*not  only  thrill  with 


228  AN  ORDINATION  CHARGE 

heaven  but  throb  with  earth/'  Think  what  a  heart 
of  sympathy  pulsated  in  every  tone  and  quivered  in 
every  look  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  Think  how  graciously 
He  preached  on  the  mountain  sides  and  by  the  lake 
shores  of  Galilee.  We  read  that  the  people  wondered 
at  the  gracious  words  that  proceeded  out  of  His 
mouth.  It  is  said  that  the  people  pressed  around  Him 
to  hear  the  word  of  God.  Do  you  not  suppose  that 
they  would  press  around  us  if  we  could  preach  it  as 
simply,  as  lovingly,  as  sympathetically  as  He  did? 

What  does  the  modern  pulpit  want?  Why  do  not 
more  people  go  to  church?  One  says  it  is  this,  an- 
other says  it  is  that.  Many  reasons  are  given,  but 
I  believe  we  lack  one  thing.  I  believe  every  church 
in  Binghamton  would  be  filled  morning  and  evening 
if  we  ministers  had  hearts  so  full  of  all  sympathy 
with  men  that  we  seemed  to  bring  God  right  down 
to  their  sides  as  a  Friend  and  Helper  in  every  time 
of  need.  Said  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  *'You  can  open 
a  church  in  a  barn  and  let  a  voice  go  out  from  it  that 
has  the  power  of  touching  men,  and  you  will  find  it 
crowded  and  thronged.''  It  is  true — ^men  want  to 
be  touched.  If  we  ministers  do  not  think  too  much 
of  the  intellect,  we  do  at  least  think  too  little  of  the 
heart.  We  preach  as  if  men  were  all  brain,  but  the 
fact  is  they  are  heart  and  quivering  sensibility. 
People  have  longings,  yearnings,  sorrows.  Only  a 
few  people  care  about  elaborate  arguments  and  fine 
writing.  The  great  mass  of  people  want  God  brought 
down  to  their  weary  heavy-laden  hearts — ^men  want 


AN  ORDINATION  CHARGE  229 

sympathy,  0  they  want  it.  Five  sentences  spoken  out 
of  a  heart  full  of  burning  love  for  souls  are  worth 
more  than  a  whole  sermon  of  ingenious  conclusions 
and  painfully  rounded  periods.    Who  was  it  that  wrote 

**It  is  the  heart  and  not  the  brain 
That  to  the  highest  doth  attain ' ' — 

It  is  a  mistake.  It  is  the  heart  soaking  through 
the  brain  that  to  the  highest  doth  attain. 

Sympathyj  the  power  of  so  putting  myself  in 
others'  places  and  others'  lives,  the  gift  of  so  taking 
up  into  my  heart  others'  sins  and  sorrows  and  bearing 
them  on  my  heart  that  every  look  and  act  of  mine 
seems  to  say,  ''Who  is  weak  and  I  am  not  weak? 
Who  suffers  and  I  am  not  in  pain  ?  Who  is  made  to 
stumble  and  I  bum  not?" — ^what  marvelous  insight  a 
man  so  endowed  has !  What  eyes  to  see  hidden  tears ! 
What  ears  to  hear  dumb  sorrows !  And  how  such  a  man 
brings  the  heavenly  into  the  earthly  and  the  divine 
near  to  the  human  when  he  preaches!  It  has  been 
said  that  a  preacher  without  sympathy  is  a  bird  with- 
out wings.  He  is  worse  than  that — ^he  is  a  bird  with- 
out a  song,  a  messenger  without  a  message,  an  angel 
without  his  radiance  upon  him.  It  is  sympathy,  di- 
vine sympathy  in  the  preacher  you  love  to  hear  which 
makes  you  feel  when  you  leave  the  church  that  the 
Christ  has  been  really  with  you. 

Do  you  remember  Jean  Ingelow's  poem,  "Brothers 
and  a  Sermon"? 


230  AN  ORDINATION  CHARGE 

'*I  have  heard  many  speak,  but  this  one  man, 
So  anxious  not  to  go  to  Heaven  alone — 
This  one  man  I  remember,  and  his  look, 
Till  twilight  overshadowed  him.    He  ceased. 
And  out  in  darkness  with  the  fisher  folk 
We  passed,  and  stumbled  over  mounds  of  moss. 
And  heard  but  did  not  see  the  passing  beck. 
Ah!  graceless  heart,  would  that  it  could  regain 
From  the  dim  store-house  of  sensations  past 
The  impress  full  of  tender  awe,  that  night, 
Which  fell  on  me.    It  was  as  if  the  Christ 
Had  been  drawn  down  from  Heaven  to  track  us  home. 
And  any  of  the  footsteps  following  us 
Might  have  been  His." 

"We  have  need  of  another  element  to  preach  Jesus 
Christ  as  He  ought  to  be  preached.  We  need  to  be 
enthusiasts,  genuine  soulful  enthusiasts  for  Christ. 
How  can  we  hold  up  before  the  world  the  great 
Enthusiast  from  Heaven  unless  our  lives  have  been 
touched  with  the  chrism  from  on  high?  Theologians 
can  teach  theology,  philosophers  can  discourse  upon 
philosophy,  and  moralists  can  moralize.  But  to  preach 
Jesus  Christ  needs  a  man  so  full  of  enthusiasm  for 
Christ  and  for  humanity  that  it  tingles  to  the  ends 
of  his  fingers  and  overruns  everything.  Fire  kindles 
fire.  Life  propagates  life.  Energy  creates  energy. 
St.  Paul  full  of  Jesus  Christ,  quivering  in  every  fibre 
of  his  intense  nature  at  the  sight  of  the  sacrifice  of 
the  Cross,  burning  like  a  torch  held  aloft  with  love 
for  souls,  what  a  power  is  such  a  man  to  rescue  lost 
men  and  draw  them  up  upon  the  Rock  of  Ages!  I 
am  told  that  by  some  clergymen  it  is  not  thought  good 


AN  ORDINATION  CHARGE  231 

form  to  be  enthusiastic.  God  pity  the  manikins  with 
white  ties!  Shall  the  hills  run  down  with  streams 
when  the  sun  touches  the  snow  upon  them,  shall  the 
vine  burst  into  leaves  and  the  grass  into  greenness 
and  all  the  birds  into  singing  when  the  new  life  of 
spring  rushes  through  them,  and  shall  human  souls 
whom  God  has  touched  with  the  love  of  Christ  and 
made  ambassadors  to  their  lost  brothers,  be  ashamed 
to  break  into  glowing  utterances  and  fiery  spiritual 
ardors  for  Him  who  loved  them  and  died  for  them? 
Think  of  the  enthusiasm  which  Columbus  felt  for 
discovery,  which  Raphael  felt  for  art,  which  Darwin 
felt  for  science,  which  Carlyle  felt  for  reality.  Is 
there  no  reason  why  ministers  should  be  enthusiasts 
for  Christ? 

We  read  how  Francis  of  Assisi  in  the  flower  of 
his  age,  young,  rich,  brave,  waked  one  night  on  the 
eve  of  conflict,  his  sword  and  shield  and  armor  shin- 
ing in  the  moonlight,  and  heard  a  voice  saying  **For 
whom  are  you  going  to  flght,  Francis  ?  You  are  going 
to  fight  for  a  feUow  creature,  but  I  am  your  Lord, 
your  Creator,  your  God — I  ask  you  to  come  and  fight 
for  Me."  The  young  knight  sprang  from  his  bed, 
battled  in  vain  with  that  peremptory  vision,  and 
finally,  throwing  himself  on  his  knees,  cried,  "I  am 
thine,  to  thee  I  consecrate  my  life."  From  that  hour 
to  his  dying  day  Francis  of  Assisi  was  an  enthusiast 
for  Christ.  And  0  what  a  light  he  was  in  those  dark 
days!  What  wonders  he  wrought!  How  the  very 
animals,  the  beasts  and  birds,  loved  him!     0  let  us 


232  AN  ORDINATION  CHARGE 

try  to  give  God  more  room  in  us  every  day,  and  let  us 
try  to  do  more  every  day  for  our  Master  to  whom  we 
owe  aU  things.  It  seems  to  me  I  have  never  made  any 
real  sacrifice  for  Christ.  I  wiU  never  say  that  if  I 
had  been  a  lawyer  or  a  physician  or  a  business  man 
I  might  have  acquired  wealth  and  distinction  and  in- 
fluence. I  will  confess  that  I  owe  the  best  gifts  I  have 
and  the  richest  results  of  my  life  to  the  ministry  of 
the  Cross  of  Christ.  Serving  Jesus  Christ  as  His  mes- 
senger to  my  fellow  men  has  made  me  all  that  I  am, 
and  ought  to  have  made  me  a  great  deal  more  than  I 
am. 

My  son,  I  have  waited  for  this  hour.  I  thank  God 
for  sparing  my  life  to  see  it.  It  is  a  solemnly  happy 
hour  in  my  existence.  Still  more  must  it  be  in  yours. 
From  this  night  to  the  night  of  your  death  lies  a 
reach  of  life  unlike  any  part  of  your  life  hitherto.  In 
a  real  deep  sense  your  life  begins  to-night.  In  the 
new  relation  with  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  new 
relation  with  your  fellow  men  which  you  have  entered 
to-night,  lies  all  that  to  you  can  make  the  difference 
between  a  life  nobly  laid  out  and  a  wasted  one,  be- 
tween the  conqueror's  consciousness  of  having  fought 
a  good  fight  and  the  sense  of  failure  and  defeat. 

But  while  you  realize  deeply  the  solemnities  of  this 
hour  let  nothing  hide  from  your  eyes  the  vision  of 
the  All-merciful  Saviour  bending  over  you  with  ten- 
derest  interest  and  sympathy,  and  longing  to  help  you 
to  make  this  ministry  what  He  intended  it  to  be,  **the 
greatest  blessing  He  ever  gave  the  world. '* 


AN  ORDINATION  CHARGE  233 

May  He  help  you  to  be  a  better  minister  than  I 
have  been.  May  He  help  you  to  have  larger  thoughts 
of  His  truth  and  grace,  to  have  more  self -forgetting 
love  for  the  souls  of  men,  to  advance  where  we  have 
paused,  to  plant  the  Cross  on  heights  which  we  have 
failed  to  reach  and  to  do  nobly  the  work  which  some 
of  us,  alas,  have  done  so  poorly  and  unworthily.  May 
He  help  you  to  do  His  work,  to  glorify  His  Name,  to 
win  souls  for  His  crown,  and  to  have  at  last  His  ap- 
proving word  ''Well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant, 
enter  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord." 


DATE  DUE 

b 

J«fe<0'7S 

CAYUORO 

PRINTCOIN  US. A. 

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